BCjobs Blog

While it would be foolish to ignore religion, gender, and age as potential grounds for discrimination complaints, employers are presently struggling on another front. So-called “family status” discrimination complaints seem to be the growth area in today’s human rights world.

British Columbia, along with other provincial and federal jurisdictions in Canada, prohibits employers from refusing to employ (or otherwise discriminating against) a person regarding employment because of the person’s “family status”. What the vague term, “family status”, means in the employment context is gradually becoming clearer.

Our common law of wrongful dismissal establishes most employees’ entitlement to notice of termination (or pay in lieu) based, primarily, on the employee’s tenure. What some employers don’t know is that a court may regard that tenure as continuous through one or more breaks in service.

According a recent article by Randy Shore, published in the Vancouver Sun, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) has implemented a policy banning consumption of alcohol by employees during the work day. Unfortunately for ICBC, its work day includes a lunch period for which employees are not paid.

Now that we’re into the first January of a new decade, it’s as good a time as any to assess how we perform our jobs on a day-to-day basis. Human resources managers are no different, and here are my five suggestions of things they might consider trying in 2010.

The recent Report Following a Public Interest Investigation respecting the death of Robert Dziekanski relied heavily on video evidence produced by a bystander. I’m thinking employers should get accustomed to facing such evidence of the actions of their staff.

As surely as kids heading back to school and Christmas decorations appearing (too early) in stores, September brings annual projections of pay increases for the following year. These projections can – if used in a considered fashion – be a useful guideline as your business approaches its yearly pay review process.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has reported that, at the time of a recent mid-air collision between an airplane and a helicopter, the air traffic controller was making a personal telephone call. The crash killed nine people and is an example of what can happen when an employee is engaged in personal business rather than focused on work duties.

When it comes to the workplace, it’s fair to say the employer has the authority to take some liberties in monitoring the activities of employees. According to an Ontario judge, surreptitiously spying on a manager isn’t one of them.