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Posts Tagged ‘employment relationship’

Misclassification of workers: contractors or consultants?

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

I have often written and spoken about misclassification of workers, specifically that many organizations agree to call workers “contractors” or “consultants” even though they are, in reality, employees. The bottom line is that our courts and government agencies, including the Canada Revenue Agency, will not be swayed by the terms used in a document or the manner in which parties describe their relationship. They will look at the reality of the situation, and…

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Tags: Canada Revenue Agency, consultants, contractor, contractors, employee or self-employed, employment contracts, employment law, employment relationship, independent contractors, Misclassification of workers
Posted in Employee Relations, Employment Standards, Human Resources, Recruiting and Hiring | 2 Comments »

Written agreements in the employment relationship are valuable

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

I have written in this blog and elsewhere, of the value in written employment contracts, written offers of employment, and written employment policies. Much like the break up of a marriage, the parties to the dissolution of the employment relationship often have widely divergent recollections of the understanding of the terms of the relationship when they were entered into. In particular,…

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Tags: constructive dismissal, employment contract, employment contracts, employment law, employment policies, employment relationship, hiring process, negligent misrepresentation, offers of employment, resignation, severance package, written agreements, wrongful dismissal
Posted in Employment Standards, Human Resources, Recruiting and Hiring | Make a Comment »

Can employers protect business contacts acquired by employees’ use of social media?

Friday, July 15th, 2011

Consider this: you have encouraged your employee to use online social media during work time to build professional contacts to grow your business. The employee goes ahead and invests time during the workday visiting sites like Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook. This strategy proves to be positive; the contacts have been part of the business growth you have experienced. Then, your employee wants to leave the company and move on to another job. Can you, as the employer, ask for the contact information the employee accumulated during his or her employment?

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Tags: business opportunities, Emails, employment contract, employment law, employment relationship, facebook, in the course of employment, LinkedIn, networking, non-disclosure, non-solicitation, personal versus work, professional contacts, restrictive covenants, social media, social media portability, social media sites, social networking, twitter, work-related
Posted in Employee Relations, Human Resources, Internal Controls | Make a Comment »

Pre-hiring accommodation

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

As most of us are aware, the Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination in the context of employment, and applies both during the employment relationship and in the hiring process. Most of us would take it as a given that you cannot make hiring decisions based upon grounds such as race, religion, gender, or disability. However, it is not quite as widely understood that the duty to accommodate an individual applies even to those who are not yet employees.

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Tags: alcohol and drug testing, Disability, discrimination, discrimination based upon protected grounds in the hiring process, DM v. Toronto District School Board, duty to accommodate, duty to accommodate applicants, employment law, employment relationship, failed to accommodate, gender, hiring decisions, hiring process, human rights code, human rights legislation, learning disability, Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, pre-employment testing, race, religion
Posted in Human Resources, Human Rights, Recruiting and Hiring | Make a Comment »

What do employers do when employees provide too much notice of resignation?

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

An oft-overlooked issue is the amount of notice that employees must give their employer when they leave. According to…

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Tags: amount of notice that employees must give their employer when they leave, employment law, employment relationship, notice of resignation, notice period, reasonable notice of termination, terminations, two weeks of notice
Posted in Employment Standards, Human Resources | Make a Comment »

The importance of a well-crafted employment agreement

Friday, May 13th, 2011

Despite being one of the most basic and fundamental legal protections employers can have, many employers do not use written employment agreements when they hire new employees.

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Tags: anti-competition clauses, employment agreement, employment contract, employment law, employment relationship, employment standards act, Enforcing employment contract, hiring, litigation, minimum standards, reasonable clauses, restricitve covenants, Termination clause, terms of employment
Posted in Employment Standards, Human Resources, Recruiting and Hiring | 2 Comments »

Ongoing evolution of ‘the damages formerly known as Wallace’

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

As we all know, in the late 1990’s the Supreme Court of Canada held that employers had a duty to act in good faith in the course of terminating the employment relationship. In Wallace v. United Grain Growers, our High Court found that the employer had breached that duty, and the majority held that the remedy for such a breach would be to extend the applicable notice period. Over the following decade, claims for “Wallace damages” became commonplace, to say the least. Unfortunately, many courts seemed more than willing to oblige plaintiffs, finding bad faith in all sorts of circumstances that, while not demonstrative of perfect practice in the course of dismissal, hardly seemed to indicate conduct taken in bad faith.

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Tags: Altman v. Steve’s Music Store Inc, bad faith, damages arising out of bad faith, damages arising out of the manner of dismissal, Dismissal, duty to act in good faith, employment law, employment relationship, Keays v. Honda Canada Inc, Mulvihill v. Ottawa (City), notice period, Soost v. Merrill Lynch, Supreme Court of Canada, terminations, The Damages Formerly Known as Wallace, Wallace damages, Wallace v. United Grain Growers
Posted in Employment Standards, Human Resources | Make a Comment »

Dealing with the shareholder employee

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

It is not uncommon in smaller family run or closely held businesses to have a situation where a key employee is also a significant shareholder in the business. However, this can create significant issues if the relationship with the employee changes, particularly if the relationship deteriorates. This is because such employees are subject not only to employment laws, but also can take advantage of shareholder protections.

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Tags: employment contract, employment law, employment relationship, family run business, oppression remedy, shareholder protections, wrongful dismissal
Posted in Human Resources | Make a Comment »

How would you manage Gordon Ramsay if he was your employee?

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

How would you manage Gordon Ramsay if he was your employee? How many of you are thinking, “With the revenue he generates, he can act any way he wants”?

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Tags: abusive behaviour, anti-harassment policies, bullying, bullying behaviour, canadian employment law, discrimination, employment law, employment relationship, Gordon Ramsay, harassment, harassment free workplace, Jamie Oliver, Kitchen Nightmares
Posted in Health and Safety, Human Resources, Human Rights | Make a Comment »

Increase in litigation by employers against former employees

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

In reviewing the cases that come along through the various reporting services, my subjective impression is that there appears to be an increase in litigation by employers against former employees.

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Tags: Breach of duty, canadian employment law, confidential information, contract of employment, duty of loyalty and fidelity, employee’s duty of loyalty and fidelity, employment law, employment relationship, fiduciary duties, lititgation, term of employment, terminations
Posted in Employment Standards, Human Resources | Make a Comment »

Online indiscretions… well, you know the story

Monday, July 19th, 2010

We’ve heard a bunch of stories over the past year about companies firing or not hiring employees, or challenging their claims of illness, over inappropriate online behaviour, particularly comments and photos posted on Facebook and other social networking websites. While the media have made a big deal of these cases, none has had the profile of CNN’s recent firing of Middle East correspondent, Octavia Nasr. The US news giant felt Nasr had compromised her credibility by publicly tweeting her respect for a prominent Islamic cleric on his death. The Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah had ties to controversial political action group Hezbollah.

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Tags: CNN, employee relations, employment contract, employment relationship, employment standards, facebook, Octavia Nasr, online comments, social networking, termination, termination with cause, twitter
Posted in Employment Standards, Human Resources | 2 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘employment relationship’

Misclassification of workers: contractors or consultants?

Written agreements in the employment relationship are valuable

Can employers protect business contacts acquired by employees’ use of social media?

Pre-hiring accommodation

What do employers do when employees provide too much notice of resignation?

The importance of a well-crafted employment agreement

Ongoing evolution of ‘the damages formerly known as Wallace’

Dealing with the shareholder employee

How would you manage Gordon Ramsay if he was your employee?

Increase in litigation by employers against former employees

Online indiscretions… well, you know the story

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