The Impostor

An advertising agency was looking for a writer - and they thought they had found the perfect candidate. Ann's test assignment was clever, compelling and creative, and the manager Olivia was sure that the candidate's writing could skyrocket customer satisfaction.

To the manager's shock, the new employee failed the very first work assignment. The article she presented was full of stylistic mistakes and was poorly researched. The client was deeply disappointed with the end result, so Olivia had to ask another writer to edit the article and offer a large discount to the customer. The agency lost a significant part of the profit that day.

To the manager's shock, the new employee failed the very first work assignment. The article she presented was full of stylistic mistakes and was poorly researched. The client was deeply disappointed with the end result, so Olivia had to ask another writer to edit the article and offer a large discount to the customer. The agency lost a significant part of the profit that day.

Olivia thought such a sporadic quality was suspicious, and it was a good reason to take a closer look at the new employee. She started with monitoring her activity during work hours using CleverControl. The internet activity report showed that Ann's work time was shared primarily between dating and shopping sites. She wrote her assignments haphazardly at the very last minute and did not generally treat her work very seriously.

Olivia was sure that if she limited Ann's access to entertainment websites, Ann would be more focused on work, and her productivity would improve. After all, Ann could write excellent texts, and Olivia did not want to lose such a talented employee. However, blocking unwanted websites did not bring the desired results - Ann began to look for other ways to waste her time. CleverControl's reports showed that she was absent from her computer for hours - she shuttled from colleague to colleague, distracting them with gossip and small talk. After several complaints from other employees, Olivia had to talk to Ann seriously. She warned the employee that such negligence could lead to the end of their cooperation and gave Ann a three-week period to improve her performance.

The first thing Ann did after the talk was to send a desperate Whatsapp message to her mother from her office computer. The message was logged by CleverControl and gave a clue for revealing the ugly truth. It turned out that Ann's mother was a professor of literature. It was she who wrote that brilliant test assignment and other outstanding texts for her daughter. Ann had neither talent for writing nor desire to work in that field, thus the negligence of her work responsibilities.

After a discussion of the situation with the management, Ann handed in her resignation.

• User’s activity tracking

  Activity reports helped the company detect the employee’s low productivity level.
• Visited websites monitoring

  The log showed that the employee was engaged in non-work related activity during office hours.
• Instant messengers tracking

  This feature helped to uncover the employee’s imposture.