Deloitte is monitoring the location of UK employees logging in from abroad amid a crackdown on staff flouting working-from-home rules.
The “big four” consulting giant is accessing some workers’ internet activity data to check if they are working overseas without the permission of their managers.
The move comes as businesses grapple with staff secretly logging in from more glamorous locations abroad without consent.
Deloitte is understood to not track its employees or routinely monitor their locations, but is notified when the firm’s data is accessed from remote places outside of the UK.
In these cases, the firm can pinpoint the employee’s location using their IP address, a unique string of numbers assigned to devices such as work phones and laptops connected to the internet.
Deloitte only analyses IP addresses for security purposes and to ensure that remote workers are not breaching any overseas tax, regulatory or client obligations, according to a person said to be familiar with the matter.
It comes as businesses which offered flexible “work from anywhere” perks after the pandemic now struggle to keep a lid on workers who relocate around the globe.
This can lead to legal problems for employers, who could be liable to pay taxes for staff working remotely in another jurisdiction and risk clashing with immigration authorities if they are then deported.
However, one Deloitte consultant defended the policy as not “unreasonable”. They said the firm was “hugely accommodating” and allows employees to work very flexibly.
He added: “If you’re abroad without permission, I think that is a breach of the trust that Deloitte gives its employees, so I think it’s fair to have that visibility should it be needed in some circumstances.”
Deloitte allows its UK workforce to choose how often they come into the office each week and last year introduced a new policy allowing UK employees to spend 20 days working abroad per year.
Requests are made subject to whether employees have the right to work in the remote location and meet tax and legal considerations.
Cyrus Davami, associate director in Deloitte’s global talent mobility consulting team, previously said that the “philosophy is to say yes in as many cases as possible”.
He said the remote working policy is partly designed to help attract and retain workers amid increasing competition for talent.
It comes as members of the big four increase surveillance efforts to monitor office attendance and subsequently pursue employees working from home too much.
PwC last week warned its 26,000 employees in the UK that the firm will begin tracking their locations in a wider crackdown on office attendance.
The professional services giant said that it will begin sharing “individual working location data” with employees and their career coaches from January, according to reports.
Staff were also told that they must spend at least three days per week either at the office or from client sites.
It is understood that PwC will monitor employees’ locations using their office swipe card data, following a similar approach adopted by rival big four firm EY at the start of the year.
Deloitte declined to comment.
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