promotion

Fishing for notice: British Columbia Supreme Court addresses inducement and contingency factors in wrongful dismissal suits

July 6, 2017 Employer Advisor, McCarthy Tétrault LLP Human Resources, Recruiting and Hiring

Care is required when recruiting a potential employee, but not all active recruitment activities qualify as inducement. More than giving the employee the impression there is room to grow or job security is required. Actual evidence of promises made by the company and the employee’s reliance upon those promises is necessary to sustain a determination of inducement. Nevertheless, employers can avoid claims of inducement by using written employment agreements that contain “entire agreement” clauses and confirm that the employee has not been induced by any promises.

employment agreements, employment contract, employment law, inducement, promotion, reasonable notice, recruiting, wrongful dismissal

Fresh consideration and employment contracts

November 17, 2016 Simon Heath, BA, MIR, LLB, Heath Law Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, HR Policies and Procedures, Human Resources, Notice, Damages and Settlements, Payroll, Pensions and Benefits, Recruiting and Hiring, Source Deductions and Reporting, Union Relations, Wages and Compensation

When a company promotes an employee, the employer should provide the employee with a new contract to sign prior to allowing the employee to commence his or her duties. In that way, the company is providing the employee with “fresh consideration” to make the contract enforceable. Consideration is the legal word for the exchange of something of value to make contracts enforceable and in a promotion it takes the form of the increased salary that comes with the new job. If the company allows the employee to be promoted and then has the employee sign an employment contract after the promotion has already taken place, there is a chance the employee can argue the terms of the contract that were not discussed pre–promotion should not be enforced for lack of fresh consideration rendering the terms of the contract unenforceable.

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HR metrics: Linking qualitative and quantitative measurement

September 12, 2012 Ian J Cook Employee Relations, HR Analytics, HRMS, Human Resources, Payroll, Pensions and Benefits, Wages and Compensation

Last month I promised a description of a metric which starts to take organizations deeper into the insight they need to be successful and to show real results. True to my promise here it is:

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Making your employee handbook enforceable

March 26, 2012 Andrew Taillon Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Human Resources

A regular issue for employers is whether the provisions in their employee handbook are enforceable in the same manner as an employment contract. Many employers are surprised to find that they are not…

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Was it a termination or a resignation? Credibility was key

November 25, 2011 Christina Catenacci Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Human Resources, Payroll, Wages and Compensation

In a recent case coming out of the Court of Queen’s Bench of New Brunswick, the Court believed the employee’s story that he was terminated without cause, rather than the employer’s story that the employee resigned. When looking at the facts, the Court found the employee to be the more credible witness and awarded termination notice of 23 months.

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Employer had just cause to terminate an employee who worked a second job

September 2, 2011 Christina Catenacci Employee Relations, Employment/Labour Standards, Human Resources

In some unfortunate cases, Canadians need to work two jobs in order to make ends meet. Well, it seems that sometimes taking a second job may not be a good idea. The British Columbia Provincial Court recently found that an employer could terminate an employee for just cause because that employee had a second job and refused to quit when she was asked.

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