For this week’s blog, we have gathered a list of the top 10 mistakes commonly made by freelancers and startups when hiring their first employee. Avoiding these pitfalls will help start you off on the right foot and avoid the hiring headaches!
We’ve also covered our Top 10 list in this month’s SpringForward Legal Updates
At SpringLaw, we are interested in privacy, technology and how they intersect in the workplace. A recent arbitration decision brought all three together and gives us some insight into how decision makers might treat evidence collected via surreptitious surveillance.
In Vernon Professional Firefighter’s Association, IAFF, Local 1517 and The Corporation of the City of
The minimum wage that every Ontario employer must pay their employees has gone up from $11.25 to $11.40 per hour, effective October 1, 2016. The Ontario Employment Standards Act sets out further details for specific categories of employees, such as students, liquor servers, hunting and fishing guides, and homeworkers.
For those workplaces that employ
Yesterday was Day 1 of the annual Microsoft World Partners Conference here in Toronto. As the news continues to highlight the distressing conflicts south of the border and around the world, a conference like WPC is a welcomed reminder that we all have far more in common than not.
There are 16,000 attendees that have
Machines are taking our jobs. Researchers at Oxford have analyzed the skill sets required for more than 700 jobs to determine which of them will be most susceptible to automation. They concluded that in the next few decades, over 47% of the jobs we have today will likely be taken over by machines. we
Microsoft Corp. and LinkedIn recently announced that Microsoft will soon acquire LinkedIn in a transaction valued at $26.2 billion – click here for the company’s announcement.
Under the deal, Microsoft will purchase LinkedIn’s shares at $196 each. If a share sale like this happened in Ontario, the identity of LinkedIn would not change – Microsoft would simply step in to the shoes of LinkedIn. Microsoft would inherit all employees and employment-related liabilities and obligations of LinkedIn after the deal closed.
Continue Reading Microsoft Acquiring LinkedIn: What is the Employee Impact in a Share Transaction?
This summer, our firm will be hosting a booth at the 2016 Microsoft World Partner Conference (WPC). We’re excited to connect with many of the 15,000 MS partners from around the globe who will be coming to Toronto July 10-14. Come and visit us at Booth 1737,
We all have an office party horror story. The partner who got too sloppy and friendly with the summer student, the awkward aversion of eye contact the next day, or the overly honest comments from the disgruntled employee.
While holiday parties can be an important employee morale booster, for the employer they can present a minefield of potential liability and complaints. For start-ups and entrepreneurs, the informal culture can particularly be an invitation to indulge and live it up in the name of hipster, relaxed office counter-culture.
Employer host liability, however, applies to all workplaces. Even if it’s a Saturday night and you’re at a fancy bar, the employee’s right to harassment free work environment extends to off-site employer sponsored events. If your company’s New Year’s resolutions have something to do with avoiding human rights complaints, harassment allegations or claims for social host negligence here are our top tips to get you started on the right path.
Continue Reading Holiday Party Tips for the Young Boss
In my recent blog posts, I discussed the emerging importance of coworking spaces in the post-industrial workforce and some of the risks around data security and privacy, as well as interpersonal employment law risks. In this next part of the series, I set out strategies to consider when managing employees in the coworking space.
Nobody likes to be a joy-killer with draconian policies and 20 page employment contracts. But having nothing in place is asking for unnecessary headaches. Here are a few lean strategies that you can consider, and to ramp up and expand as you grow:
In my last blog posts (here and here), I discussed the emerging importance of coworking spaces in the post-industrial workforce and some of the risks around data security and privacy. In this part three of the series, I set out some of the employment law issues related to human interactions in coworking spaces: booze, sexual harassment and discrimination.
Continue Reading Coworking Part 3: Interpersonal Employment Law Risks