A Delhi-based CEO has claimed that he found out that an employee has been moonlighting after using AI to analyse her performance. Ramanuj Mukherjee, who heads Law Sikho, said that the company hires people remotely, and based on her performance, when the employee was directed to install a time tracking and activity tracking software for proper accountability, she quit in a rage and took to LinkedIn, calling the company's work culture toxic.
"We had a suspicion that someone was moonlighting," Mukherjee wrote on X. "We gave the available data to AI to analyse. We showed her the results, demanded she install a time tracking and activity tracking software for proper accountability. She quit in rage and wrote a LinkedIn post calling our work culture toxic. Work from home does not mean you should have no accountability and work for one hour but claim salary for eight hours."
Mukherjee was joined by the company's co-founder Yash Vijayvargiya, who said that the employee had last met her target in November. "In the last two months, she achieved just 30 percent of her target. Target remained the same," he wrote on LinkedIn.
He also attached screenshots of what he claimed was the AI tool's report. According to it, the employee's daily work minutes were far below target. "The data strongly suggests part-time work (40 percent of expected hours) with possible dual employment. Not a single day reached the 250-minute target, with significant unexplained time and irregular patterns," it stated, adding that almost five hours per day of her working hours were unaccounted for.
Moreover, Mukherjee also claimed that the employee had faked information on her resume. He shared a screenshot of her LinkedIn profile, which mentioned that she had worked with Suraasa for two years before joining Law Sikho. "Just got off a call with Rishabh Khanna from Suraasa. Turns out our mysterious lady Madhumita, who has been abusing and accusing us on this platform, got fired from Suraasa in 6 months due to non-performance, but represented to us that she worked there for two years. Even her LinkedIn profile shows the same at the time of writing this post as shown in this screenshot," Mukherjee shared on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he wrote another post on LinkedIn, claiming that the employee had submitted forged offer letters, salary slips, and experience letters to bag the job at their company.
'Misuse of WFH'
This incident triggered a discussion on social media on how employees like these make companies insist that their staff work from the office.
"These are the people who have ruined work from home for everyone. All companies are shifting to work from the office. These are the people who made it happen. I am half considering moving to work from the office now," Mukherjee said.
"WFH is misused by many in this industry. People with self-motivation and personal ethics - doesn’t matter - they work well from anywhere, but that trait is extremely rare in India," commented LinkedIn user Sourav Sinha. "
It’s unfortunate that a few individuals misuse the flexibility of remote work, and their actions end up creating mistrust across the board. These are the very reasons companies are reconsidering remote setups and leaning toward stricter in-office or hybrid policies," added another user, Kantika Mukherjee.
"The benefits of remote work are often undermined by those who exploit its flexibility, leading to mistrust and stricter policies in an organisation," wrote founder-CEO Sapna Sarda. "Some may justify a lack of accountability by boasting about efficiency, productivity is about more than just speed – it's about delivering quality, meeting commitments, and upholding integrity."
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