Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
I am a workplace human rights trainer and I learn of some important real-life scenarios from my workshop participants. I am often asked to provide expert feedback. The following are two very interesting workplace human rights scenarios—I have changed the names of those involved:
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Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
By now, most of us have heard about a controversial decision of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench in which Justice Robert Dewar sentenced a man found guilty of sexual assault to a two year conditional sentence, allowing him to remain free in the community and avoid any jail time.
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Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
During my training workshops on workplace discrimination, harassment and violence participants often express interest in the topic of “political correctness.”
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Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
Alzheimer’s/dementia is becoming a nationwide epidemic and impacting the workforce more and more every day. “Alzheimer’s not only touches more and more lives every day but also impacts the workplace, especially as older people are postponing retirement and continuing to work into their 70s…”
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Monday, January 31st, 2011
Under human rights legislation in all jurisdictions in Canada, employers cannot ignore the religious needs or observances of employees but must work with employees to try to accommodate them. In addition, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of religion and expression…
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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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Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
The current movie, “The Dilemma” has caused quite a controversy lately because the character portrayed by actor Vince Vaughan says, “Electric cars are gay.”
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Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
In general, an employer, manager, supervisor or HR professional discussing an employee’s medical condition with other employees is just plain inappropriate…
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Monday, November 1st, 2010
Manitoba recently informed employers that it would be updating its Workplace, Safety and Health Regulation to include specific protection against psychological harassment. The regulation already protects workers from workplace violence and harassment, but this update is intended to address “intimidation, bullying and humiliation” and other similar behaviours at work, from which workers previously had no explicit protection.
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Tuesday, October 26th, 2010
I recently received feedback from a reader stating “I checked with the Ministry of Labour and you don’t need two separate policies to meet your workplace violence and harassment obligations. Your information is wrong.” Always question information you read or are given, double check it, triple check it and then make up your own mind about how you are going to proceed. However, it does not make the information in itself wrong.
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Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
Across Canada, human rights legislation protects people from discrimination and harassment based on sex/gender; this protection includes pregnancy and breastfeeding. It is illegal to discriminate because a woman is pregnant. It is also illegal to discriminate because a woman was pregnant, had a baby or might become pregnant.
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Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
As a human rights advisor and educator I was encouraged to overhear this educational conversation about harassment at Tim Hortons. I was concerned however that part of the message this group was hearing was incorrect and misleading.
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Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
You have a legal obligation to understand how the race, religion and sexual orientation of your employees can impact their safety at work. Understanding these factors will empower you to take steps to protect your workers from harassment and violence as required by the recent amendments to Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (Bill 168).
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Friday, June 11th, 2010
In my previous post on hazing and horseplay in the workplace, I referred to a recent incident where photos and videos revealed some very questionable events involving management and employees of the City of Mississauga. Since the acts were potentially criminal, the police became involved and started an investigation. Although some have said that the employees consented to the horseplay and hazing, one may wonder if that was really the case.
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Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
This case contains an interesting detail of particular interest to managers who feel harassed by health and safety anti-harassment policies…
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