Canada’s unemployment rate is very low at the moment and employers in many different industries are therefore finding it very difficult to fill vacant positions.
Enter the typical employment contract which is usually one sided in favour of the employer. In the past, employees may not have read them too carefully and those that did typically held their collective noses and signed. Now employees are in a much better negotiating position.
So the question becomes: Does using your standard employment contract put you at a competitive disadvantage in a tight job market.
For example, how does a prospective employee in this job market view a probationary clause and do you really need one?
Similarly, how will many (perhaps most) potential job applicants react to an offer which requires them to attend at the office 5 days a week when they are now accustomed to working remotely?
Often an employer uses a standard employment contract for all positions whether or not some of the clauses are needed for a specific position. Are you going to lose a job applicant for a minimum wage or a low skill administrative position because you ask them to sign a 5 page + employment agreement which includes a non-solicitation clause and several boilerplate clauses like a severability, entire agreement, and waiver clauses which can be intimidating for an unsophisticated person?
If job applicants for some positions are refusing your offers of employment then think about whether it is because you are asking them to sign a long, one-sided employment agreement when other employers are not. If so, consider whether or not you need to provide all positions with the same generic offer.
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