Australian weatherman Diandong Ren fired for abusing WFH to take US holiday

WFH does not mean working from anywhere, says the Australian Fair Work Commission in upholding the dismissal of a truant employee. Photo / 123rf

A hapless meteorologist could have forecast trouble while using “work from home” privileges to take a US holiday.

The Australian Fair Work Commission has upheld the dismissal of a Bureau of Meteorology worker who was fired after allegedly logging in from Texas when he was supposed to be back in Australia.

The weather office claims it dismissed Diandong Ren after discovering he had lied about his location and potentially breached security risks by accessing the IT systems from overseas without permission from the Commonwealth.

The data scientist aroused suspicions after his login details were detected from an IP in Austin, Texas.

Ren had taken four weeks’ annual leave to travel to the United States in August 2022. However, nine days after he was due back, his supervisor was concerned that he had not been seen in the office.

According to the bureau, Ren was not responding during work hours and had missed appointments.

Although he had agreed “Work From Home” (WFH) privileges with the agency, alarm bells were sounded after it was discovered that he appeared to be signing in from Austin, his home town.

Ren claims he had been back in Australia and that the suspicious traffic was due to a personal terminal left running at his address in Texas.

He was unable to produce evidence of travel dates and flights back when requested.

“While Mr Ren’s intentions may have been honourable in these circumstances, it is not for him to decide when and from where he can access the employer’s IT networks, without prior approval,” Scott Connolly, of the Fair Work Commission, said.

Arrival records for Ren obtained from the Department of Home Affairs show he did not return to Australia until October 6, two weeks after he had originally claimed.

The records also showed a further three-month trip to the US while he was under investigation by the bureau for working overseas, despite having had his leave request refused by his supervisor, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Ren claimed the travel records were incorrect and that he had been the victim of identity theft. He said his passport was stolen after returning to Australia.

After a nine-month investigation and appeal, Ren was sacked by the bureau for breach of contract and accessing government IT systems from outside the country, with “potential implications for overall security and integrity of BoM’s systems”.

The Fair Work Commission upheld the dismissal as not unreasonable.

While commissioner Connolly accepted that Ren had “formed the impression” that the WFH policy meant that employees could work wherever was convenient to them, the evidence provided suggested he had tried to mislead his employer.

Travel records showed “overwhelming” evidence that he was not in Australia when he said he was. He was explicitly aware of the policy about working from overseas.

The pandemic’s role in affording greater flexibility for remote work had also created unexpected new conundrums for businesses and more opportunities for “working holidays”, the commission said.

It encouraged employees to double-check WFH arrangements before booking travel, especially internationally.

In New Zealand, the Public Service Commission has also had to publish guidelines for the previously uncharted waters of working remotely overseas.

“While agencies must consider any request by staff to work overseas in line with their statutory obligations as an employer, there is a range of issues that agencies need to consider for each request,” the guidelines say.

Working remotely from another country, especially for the public sector, creates additional liabilities and concerns with security, legal and tax implications.