To refuse to provide bank statement to my work to prove I was in the office

[HanExplorer]

I’ve found myself in a very unusual situation and am standing firm so far despite pressure.

I work in a hybrid role with a requirement to attend our office twice a week, this is measured monthly based on card swipe data. On one of the days in May, I forgot my pass so was issued a temporary one to use that day.

Earlier this month my manager flagged I was showing a day short for office attendance in May and said I’d need to make up a further day in June. I looked at the dates they had on record and quickly realised the missing one was when I had the temporary pass so that obviously hadn’t registered on the system.

I explained this to my manager and she still maintained I’d need to attend an extra day to balance the totals on the system as there ‘wasn’t any record of me attending’.

I realised I’d spent money in the on site restaurant that day and there’d be a record on my bank showing the company name. I screenshotted this on my phone, cropped it so you could see the date and sent it to my manager.

She has checked with her manager and told me that I need to provide a copy of a bank statement which shows my name and the transaction - that would of course also show all my other activity!!

This has been dragging on and I’m standing firm so far, but I’ve had a call booked in with my manager and her manager for tomorrow and I’m wary of what they are going to say.

My office is over an hours train journey each way so not a case of driving 5 minutes down the road to work a further day - regardless, I don’t feel I should do out of principle.

Exactly @Howmanycatsistoomany I couldn't imagine working for such a petty organisation! I'd be dusting off my CV.

yeah i wouldn't be doing any work for this - tell them you're too busy with your job and they can prove you were or weren't there and come back to you when they 've confirmed.

I think you need to comply as others have suggested blank out your details. Mountain and mole hill spring to mind from both you and your boss. But if you don’t want the job carry on digging your heels in. I think many people take advantage of home working which is why more companies are cracking down on it.

Frankly, there’s enough of a ‘big brother’ culture in this country, worse since the pandemic and going along with this sort of nonsense plays right into it.

I personally don't relate to this at all. I'm trusted to do my job without this sort of interference and so are most people I know 🤷🏼‍♀️

Really? I've worked in plenty of places that don't have any sort of a signing in/swiping in method - you just turn up and sit at your desk. I don't think there's any legal obligation for companies to record exactly who is on site at any time is there? Not unless they choose to do so for security reason.

I mean, its really easily solved by reduction (physical if you aren't comfortable with digital) which is blindingly obvious.

I get that you'd rather they just trusted your word and that it might make you feel unappreciated, but its not an unreasonable request (particularly when youve given the screenshot of the individual transaction info as "proof").

Print it off and use a black marker

Why cant you print your statement off and using a black pen mark through everything apart from you name, address & that specific transaction? Surely that would be much easier than starting this thread!!

It’s super easy to screen shot and crop so they can’t see anything else. Here’s one for my co op bank. It has the date, time and amount

Sounds like both sides are being unnecessarily arsey about this whole thing, you have an easy solution, redact manually or digitally, if your dh works in cyber then he will know there are many ways to do this safely, this is the easiest and quickest solution to solving this situation for you.

Sorry but what a shitty company! How daft of them to be insisting on this. I don’t work a typical office job so could just not know any better but is this what it’s really like?

This is a ludicrous way to treat one of your best performing employees, as though they are not to be trusted - and I'd be tempted to raise that point. However I do think the bank statement issue is easy enough to resolve. Just get a printed copy, physically block out all other transactions and balance details etc and photocopy it. Nobody needs to have access to any personal data. It's annoying and you shouldn't have to do it, however there are solutions available to you.

My exact thoughts too. A very simple solution.

Print your bank statement, place paper over the bits you want to redact, and photograph it.

Your employer/manager is ludicrous to ask you to verify your whereabouts for one day
Give them the redacted statement and look for a new job

@HanExplorer sounds bonkers from your employer but you don’t need to print out a statement and black out other transactions. Both my banks if I go to my online statement I can search a transaction by name and and then it’ll just show that particular transaction rather than all the others. You could just screenshot that and your name etc will then still be there.

If you aren't willing to do as they ask to prove your presence, do the extra day in the office. Or quit.

You need to decide if this a place you want to stay working, and if you do, do one of the things that will allow that to continue.

I may not agree with how they are choosing to go about business here, but I am confident that the company will survive without you, top performer or not.

Have you ever worked anywhere on the day they are having a ISO 27001 audit? It’s tedious.

Everyone gets very uptight about security. Badges need to be worn with photos showing, stern warnings about no tailgating, no letting someone in a secured internal door (gone to the loo without your pass?) that can’t show you ID, clear desk policy strictly enforced etc etc. Recording temp access passes and knowing they are all accounted for will 100% be part of that.

you can use pdf tools to redact all other transactions

Well this is a learning exercise for the company - temporary passes need to be logged and recorded for a certain period of time to prevent situations like this arising. Company sound a nightmare.........

They should have a record of your IP address when you logged in to the office network on that day. Do you check-in on a desk reservation system when you’re in the office? Alternatively, I would just print the statement and redact what you don’t want them to see if you don’t want to use an editing app.

On my online banking I can search for a particular transaction and download that as a statement - is this possible?

And if I were one of your employees I’d be looking for a job in a company with basic competence in office security and where they understood data privacy applies to employees as well as managers.

I’d also be looking for a company with managers sufficiently competent to assess someone’s worth based on outputs not a dodgy office pass system.

It never ceases to amaze me here how posters are told to hand over personal data to compensate for inept business practices.

Find another job with an employer that treats employees like adults.

People seem to be missing the point.
OP caused the problem.
OP has been offered a solution to the problem.
Op refuses to facilitate the solution.

It’s on you, OP. Just redact the rest and stop getting yourself labelled as ‘difficult’.