How did she get away with never turning on her camera?
There's definitely an opportunity here to make a bunch of money at least pretending to fix this problem. Or maybe capital just decides to bring everyone back into the office.
I imagine it would be a problem in the US too, just for other reasons probably. You are essentially giving confidential work info to a third party that has no relationship with your employer.
Not a lawyer, but I don't see a deception charge for "under-performing and getting fired for it (while having 2 jobs)" faring well in courts.
Think about it: if you were performing your work well, despite having 2 jobs, what would the deception be? You promised to deliver work on your own, you deliver it on your own. The other job has no intersection with your other one, they are entirely independent. The only difference between that situation and the same situation but poor performance is literally just your performance. Poor performance doesn't automatically turn that situation into deception.
The law is interpreted by human beings, you know, it's not a 'code is law' situation. Remember that a jury would make the final decision. I can see a good lawyer using an argument along the lines of 'well, you said agreed to work FULL time. If a bucket is already FULL would a reasonable person expect the bucket to be able to carry any more load?' and winning.
If there is fraudulent intent it is illegal. The intent is what matters here.
How do you prove the employee wasn’t simply incompetent?
Wow. I can't imagine contracting work from people (and giving them access to commercial-in-confidence data) and yet not knowing with 100% certainty 100% of the time that the people I'm talking to are the people I'm contracting with, you know, the ones I background-checked, the ones I can hold accountable in court.
You know what happened with remote schooling? Teachers didn't demand that pupils turned on their cameras because of the same 'it'll make them uncomfortable' excuse. Result? Kids turned their computers on, their cameras off and played minecraft all day for 18 months.
Don't be odd about this. Nothing at all about face to face contact is uncomfortable for adults. That shouldn't be something that's normalised and it's detrimental to society to allow for it. You are literally reading an article that outlines all the negatives about your 'cameras are uncomfortable' mindset and you still haven't twigged?
Keep doing it your way, but don't be surprised when you've had your entire company's data exfiltrated and sold to a competitor by the 'person' you were too uncomfortable to ask to appear on video.
And don't for one microsecond retain people who mysteriously only produce quality work when 'unsupervised' or 'overnight' or when they're 'on the phone all the time.' Fire them! You have no idea who they're talking to or who's really doing the work. They're not an asset to your company, they're a bullshit artist!
Even in the same company I had teams where no one would turn on their camera and some where everybody would.
First, the top performers on my team right now are essentially ghosts. One I just went on a business trip outside the country with, and I hadn't seen his face for a year and I might not see it again ever. Another one is my "lieutenant" and in two years I've seen him face to face twice. No video. He's probably leaving the country soon and I don't care, because he'll be in the same longitude.
The other point, since this is FAANG, how is the conversation going to go with HR if I want to terminate someone because they won't turn on their camera?
Well, I guess going by what you've said they won't care either. I don't know how you can run a company productively over the long term if nobody cares, though.
If you think looking at a camera view of someone will prevent them from defrauding you, you are an ideal con artist’s mark because you’re taking your cues from the easier parts to fake.
This is also fine. But look at the reply below yours, when the 'team manager' is littering their comments with 'my top performers are ghosts' and 'I don't care.'
Your strategy involves focus and care applied through one perspective. My strategy involves focus and care applied through another perspective. Yours is arguably better, but I don't think mine is insecure, mine is perhaps a reaction to some of the nonsense I'm seeing in this thread in which managers admit they have staff who they think are outsourcing their work or just can't do the job but are 'uncomfortable' dealing with it. I don't think they're uncomfortable, I just think they don't care. I can't stand don't carers. I've had to work on too many teams managed by don't carers and staffed with don't carers and I just don't get the mentality. It annoys me.