Bell Canada parent company BCE Inc. BCE-T has terminated “a small number” of employees who it says violated its code of conduct by intentionally and repeatedly falsifying workplace attendance.
Following an internal review, the company found that some employees were entering the office and swiping in with their key card to record attendance, before immediately leaving the premises, the company said, in what it called “swipe and go” behaviour.
These violations took place in offices across the country, and included one instance where an employee swiped their card just before midnight and again after the hour, to signal to the system they had been in-office two days in a row, the company said.
They also included an instance of an employee entering the company’s premises, using fitness facilities and then leaving.
“In each case, there was a thorough investigation and individuals were presented with clear evidence of their misconduct,” said Bell spokesperson Luc Levasseur.
“The majority of individuals admitted to deliberate and repeated falsification of workplace attendance,” he said. The company said that no unionized employees were affected.
Mr. Levasseur said there is no wider work force reduction program under way.
Bell said it has maintained a three-day in-office policy for most of its corporate employees.
However, many companies and the federal government recently changed their policies, requiring employees to return to the office five days a week. On Monday, executives in the federal service returned to office full-time, with all other employees in-office four days a week.
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Employment law firm Samfiru Tumarkin LLP said it has been contacted by “a few dozen former Bell employees, some with many years of service, who allege they were fired for ‘coffee badging,’ or a ‘badge in and bounce.’”
“The message we’re hearing in some cases is that this wasn’t a secret – it was a workplace culture often encouraged by their own managers. These employees believed that as long as they completed their work and hit their targets, their physical location was secondary,“ spokesperson Ryan Bonnar said in an email.
According to Bell, these terminations are being considered ”for cause.”
In the Canadian employment law context, “for cause” dismissals are rare, because they carry very serious consequences for employees, including the loss of severance entitlements, said Tara Vasdani, managing partner and an employment lawyer with Remote Law Canada.
“Traditionally, the courts have reserved findings of cause for serious misconduct such as theft, fraud, dishonesty or other conduct that irreparably damages the employment relationship,” she said.
Historically, the courts have allowed immediate termination in instances of theft or fraud, without requiring that a company first warns the employees of a possible termination, she said. However, cases of this kind are always “highly fact-specific” and will depend on factors such as whether expectations were clearly communicated, and whether the employer enforced the policy consistently across the workforce.
However, Samfiru Tumarkin employment lawyer Teilen Celentano said that in his experience, a company would typically have to warn employees before terminating them for cause, given the serious implications of that decision.
He said that the case law surrounding this kind of termination is still quite new, as this is a problem that largely started to rise in recent years as employers called their staff back to the office.
One legal challenge in these instances is proving to what degree a manager condoned behaviour like “swipe and go,” as this may alter the employee’s legal grounds to challenge a dismissal.