Wells Fargo Employees Fired for Faking Being at Their Desk

Over a dozen Wells Fargo employees were fired last month for trying to fool their bosses into thinking they were working when they were not, as first reported by Bloomberg Thursday. It seems they were unsuccessful. A regulatory filing with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) says the bank investigated the staff’s “simulation of keyboard activity” and let some folks go who were creating the “impression of active work.”

While the filing doesn’t specify further, it appears to be referring to “mouse jigglers” that took off during the pandemic. These devices sit on your mouse or trackpad and periodically move it an inch, to simulate an active status on your work computer. You can find them on Amazon for $20 to $30, but if you’re not careful, it could also cost you your job.

“Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Bloomberg.

Most of these employees were relatively recent hires, but one had worked with the bank for more than seven years, according to The Financial Times. It’s unclear exactly how Wells Fargo caught these employees.

Technology writer and lawyer Paul Skallas writes that it’s important to plug your mouse jiggler into a separate electrical socket. Skallas notes that plugging one into the USB on your laptop can let your company know you are using one.

These firings come just a few weeks after FINRA reinstated rules that require close supervision of employees’ working setups. The rule, which was paused during the pandemic, mandates that banks treat their employees’ homes as “non-branch locations” that are subject to the same inspections and requirements as an office.

Wells Fargo currently adopts a hybrid flexible work model that requires employees to be in office three days a week, according to Bloomberg. But it seems employees were home twice a week jiggling their mice while doing something else. In the years since the pandemic, several companies have issued stricter in-office policies to limit the time employees spend slacking off at home.

There’s a pervasive idea that remote work is not as effective as in-person work, especially in finance. Despite the use of mouse jigglers, there’s relatively little evidence that employees actually get less work done at home. A study from the University of Pittsburgh recently found that return-to-office mandates did little to improve productivity.