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Results-Only Work Environments
Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

It’s no secret that one of the keys to happiness at work is a sense of control. With most knowledge workers having shifted to working from home, perhaps with more built-in flexibility, and with managers having had to let go of their need to be able to physically supervise, some workplaces may consider revisiting the idea of Results-Only Work Environments (ROWE).

What is a Results-Only Work Environment?

In a results-only work environment, the focus is autonomy and accountability. Employees are not subject to requirements like being at their desk or available via Slack from 9 – 5. How and when they get work done is up to them. What the employer focuses on is results and only results. If a full-time employee takes only 20 hours a week to fulfill their duties, in a ROWE workplace that’s fine! The other 20 hours are their own.   
Continue Reading Results-Only Work Environments

using social media to vet new hires
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

This is Part 2 of our two-part series on social media in hiring. Click here for Part 1!

There is the personal and there is the professional, and never the twain shall meet. At least that was once the prevailing attitude towards work life and private life. In a progressively interconnected world, the personal and the professional are becoming increasingly intertwined. But are there problems, particularly legal problems, that arise from the fusion of these two aspects of one’s life? What sorts of employment-related legal issues, for instance, might employers (and employees, by extension) encounter in the hiring process if they choose to review candidate social media profiles? We’ve covered some issues in Part 1 of our “social media in hiring” series. Below are some further thoughts worth considering.
Continue Reading Part 2 – Caution to Employers Using Social Media to Vet Potential New Hires

reviewing candidates’ social media
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

This is Part 1 of our two-part series in social media in hiring. Stay tuned for Part 2 next week! 

Today, there are more users on social media than ever before. Scores of people everywhere in the world are posting personal information online. This information is being consumed by billions of people on a daily basis, some for more personal reasons, others less so. Countless employers have, for instance, rapidly shifted to incorporating the extra step of reviewing potential candidates’ social media activity into the hiring processes. Considering the relative novelty of social media technology, employers should brace themselves for increasing litigation around this in relation to employment issues in the years to come. 
Continue Reading Caution to Employers Using Social Media to Vet Potential New Hires

manager exemption for overtime
Photo by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash

Last week we wrote about ways employers can manage overtime liabilities with Averaging Agreements and Time in Lieu. This week we will tackle a commonly litigated overtime issue – the manager exemption. 

The Manager Exemption 

Not every worker is entitled to overtime pay. Exemptions are set out in section 8 of Ontario Regulation 285.1 under the Employment Standards Act, 2000. Included in the list of the exempt is the manager or, to be exact, “a person whose work is supervisory or managerial in character and who may perform non-supervisory or non-managerial tasks on an irregular or exceptional basis.” Who exactly falls under this exemption can be unclear. 
Continue Reading Overtime Part 2: The Manager Exemption

SpringLaw is 4!!!!  To celebrate our 4-year anniversary, thank our clients and welcome non-client businesses who are looking for a new way to receive legal services, we are pleased to offer The 444 Toolkit.

The 444 Toolkit is a collection of our most highly sought-after resources our clients ask for every day:

  • 4 core legal templates
  • 4 of our most popular workplace law guides
  • 4 helpful checklists

If you are a small business owner, looking to update your core legal docs and needing some guidance to navigate this ongoing rollercoaster of the pandemic, this workplace law toolkit is for you!

THIS IS A DEEPLY DISCOUNTED, TIME-LIMITED OFFER!
Continue Reading The 444 Employment Law Toolkit

questions about vaccines and employees
Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

With the vaccine becoming more widely available, questions about vaccine passports, time off to get the vaccine and whether employers can require employees to get the vaccine are becoming more relevant. 

Paid Vaccination Leave in Saskatchewan

Last week a new paid vaccine leave became law in Saskatchewan. This leave, which was made under Saskatchewan’s Occupational Health and Safety Regulations, 2020, allows workers to take PAID time off to get their vaccines. Saskatchewan is the first jurisdiction in Canada to implement this type of leave. 
Continue Reading Vaccinating the Workforce

vacation pay class actions
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Since 2019, there have been five proposed class actions against insurance companies and banks for failure to pay proper vacation pay to employees, both past and present. The total amount claimed in the aggregate of these five actions is around $1.2 billion. Royal Bank of Canada is a named party in three of the five actions; in one, it is facing a proposed $800-million class-action lawsuit involving thousands of advisors. Bank of Montreal and Allstate Insurance are also named in these class actions. A significant aspect of the allegations against these employers revolves around the calculation of their employees’ vacation pay. The issue is that for many of these employees, the majority of their compensation is and was made up of commissions and bonuses. Their vacation pay, however, was and continues to be based solely on their much lower base salaries.
Continue Reading Vacation pay class actions a heads up for employers

new tort of internet harassment
Photo by Tianyi Ma on Unsplash

In Caplan v. Atas, 2021 ONSC 670 the Ontario Superior Court has recognized a new tort of internet harassment or “harassment in internet communications” to be precise. Notably, there is no tort – meaning you cannot sue someone – for just plain old harassment. 

The facts of the Caplan case giving rise to this new tort involved some extreme, wide-reaching and long-lived behaviour on the part of the defendant, Ms. Atas. The case involved multiple plaintiffs, all of who had been victims of Ms. Atas’ online harassment campaigns. A family member of one plaintiff found “80,000 unique search results attributable to Atas, related to some 3,747 online posts, on 77 different web sites, directed against 150 different victims.” 
Continue Reading New Tort of Internet Harassment