Justice has annulled it

A medical visitor from Galicia, with productivity awards and a salary of almost 5,000 euros per month, was fired after his company’s decision to put a Private detective to control you. He accused him of working just 90 minutes a day when he said he did much more. But justice has made a decision that radically contradicts the criteria followed by the company.

The detective stopwatch that has not served at all. This story starts in the spring of 2024, as collects the judicial sentence. The medical visitor who worked for a pharmaceutical company had the task of visits to doctors to sell their new treatments. But after a decline, the company decided to hire a private detective to monitor its movements.

The commercial was controlled by all fronts. Both his company car and the tablet he used could register their movements within the working day. But the detective in this case detected important irregularities between what the commercial reported and what really did in its day to day.

A demolishing report for the worker. After monitoring from different locations in Galicia, it was seen that the worker said he worked more than he really did. For example, in Vigo the employee reported four hours of work where he visited 12 doctors. The detective timed only an hour and a half of activity in the hospital. The same happened in Ourense, where he spent 45 minutes in a cafeteria, although he points out that he visited four doctors.

In the case of Pontevedra and Ferrol, these same patterns were repeated as there were stay times in hospitals much lower than the day and visits that the commercial recorded on its agenda.

With this report in the hand, the company concluded that there was an abuse of flagrant trust, since of the 51 visits he said he made, the company, based on surveillance, attributed “five to the most” and proceeded to fire him.

Productivity weighs more than GPS. This case reached the high courts and that was where the company’s argument collapsed. The worker’s defense focused not on the hours he physically passed in a hospital, but on the nature of his position and the demonstrated performance.

For the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia It is very striking for the company to reward the worker up to 4,000 euros for having great productivity and be an “exemplary worker.” In this way, for judges efficiency is not laziness, since they point out that it is fully compatible to make “visits together”, something that a detective cannot interpret correctly.

A pulse between two work models. The TSXG ruling confirms the inadmissibility of the dismissal and forces the company to choose between the worker’s readmission or the payment of compensation that exceeds 118,000 euros. Beyond the particular case, this sentence opens the current debate on the measurement of work. It shows that, at least in judicial field, the idea that monitor connection hours o Physical presence is an obsolete method to evaluate roles based on autonomy and objectives.

There are many techniques to avoid time control. This is not an isolated case in the offices, as with Teams where The connection status can be controlled to see who is workingwhich also makes Companies appear to monitor workers who telework. Even in the offices it has been seen as the gene generation makes ‘task masking’ that is literally pretend that you work. Everything so that they do not receive more tasks they already have. And all because evaluating the goals for hours cannot be the most appropriate.

It is not an isolated case. There are many companies that follow this same strategy, especially for combat possible false casualties That there are in your template. And it is completely legal, since according to the Private Security Lawdetectives can act in the face of suspicion of fraud in work decline.

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