A PwC employee discovered to have been working remotely from India for weeks when he should have been based in his office in Dublin has lost a challenge to his dismissal.
A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator said senior associate, Jasch Asher was “the author of his own predicament” after finding that he intended to remain in India and wished to continue working remotely from there, despite a “clear contractual requirement” that he be based in Ireland.
Asher’s level of attendance at PwC’s offices on North Wall Quay, Dublin 1 came under scrutiny in November 2024 after he told his supervisor he couldn’t meet him in person to discuss the outcome of his performance improvement plan, the company told the tribunal.
Melanie Crowley of Mason, Hayes & Curran, for PwC, submitted that Asher had two days’ notice of the meeting scheduled for November 2024, but turned it down with 10 minutes’ notice, telling his supervisor, he was “not in the office”.
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The correspondence indicated the supervisor was under the impression Asher lived five or 10 minutes’ walk from the office, and rescheduled the meeting for later in the day, it was submitted.
Asher said he “had a cold and could not come into the office” when the supervisor reached him by phone, it was further submitted.
When the supervisor asked if he had been in earlier in the week, Asher said he had, the tribunal was told.
Asher then proceeded to make “serious allegations against the supervisor and accused him of bullying him”, Crowley submitted. The supervisor denied these allegations and was never subject to a formal complaint by r Asher, the WRC heard.
The supervisor went to HR for advice and “mentioned that he had not actually seen the complainant in the office for some time”, she added.
Crowley submitted that PwC then started looking into Asher’s office attendance by examining access card data and his internet traffic.
They discovered he had been “working from India since September 30th, 2024” – the previous five working weeks – “without the respondent’s knowledge and contrary to his contract”, Crowley submitted.
PwC’s remote work policy allowed for a maximum period of 30 days working from overseas – an allotment Asher had already used up, the tribunal was told.
The following week, PwC human resources officer Ciara O’Reilly had a conference call with Asher and the supervisor and told the complainant he was being suspended for a disciplinary investigation, O’Reilly said in evidence.
O’Reilly said that, on the call, Asher “denied being in India and insisted he was working from his home in Dublin”.
The supervisor then asked him to come to the office the next day, but Asher said he couldn’t, O’Reilly said.
Later that month, O’Reilly said, Asher admitted to her that he had been “working from India for some time”. He said he couldn’t come back to Dublin “because his landlord had sold or was in the process of selling his accommodation” and he didn’t want to work with the supervisor, the witness said.
Asher “wished to continue working remotely from India” and “made it clear he had no intention of returning to work in Ireland”, the witness said.
There had already been two attempts to convene an in-person disciplinary investigation meeting with Asher in November the tribunal heard.
“It will be difficult for me to travel to Ireland for a meeting with an uncertain outcome. I fail to understand why the meeting cannot be conduct[ed] online,” Asher wrote in one email in early December 2024.
In reply, O’Reilly wrote: “I accept you will not be returning to work in Ireland and therefore I will process your termination, effective today,” the tribunal was told.
Asher, who represented himself at a hearing in April this year, told the WRC the supervisor gave him permission to work from India, though he accepted under cross-examination that he had not mentioned this in any correspondence with his employer.
He denied telling O’Reilly he had to move back to India because his landlord was selling up. He said he had gone back for “family reasons”.
Asher said he remained out of work at the time of the hearing and was living off his savings.
Adjudication officer Niamh O’Carroll dismissed Asher’s complaint against PwC under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 in a decision published on Thursday.
“The evidence establishes that he intended to remain in India indefinitely and wished to continue working remotely from there, notwithstanding the clear contractual requirement that he be based in Ireland,” she wrote.
PwC had “substantial grounds justifying the termination of the employment relationship”, O’Carroll wrote.
“The termination of the employment relationship arose directly from the complainant’s refusal to comply with his contractual obligations and his stated intention not to return to Ireland,” she wrote.
“The complainant was the author of his own predicament,” she added.
