Canadian HR Reporter

May 2021 CAN

Canadian HR Reporter is the national journal of human resource management. It features the latest workplace news, HR best practices, employment law commentary and tools and tips for employers to get the most out of their workforce.

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www.hrreporter.com 3 to roll that out for another 6,000 at corporate centres and manufacturing sites. The tracker sets off an alarm when people are closer than six feet apart. "It's fantastic because it's a constant r e m i n d e r o f. . . y o u r s i t u a t i o n a l awareness," says Webb. "It's almost like a competition; you don't want that thing to be beeping. So, you get into the practice of keeping the safe distance." The technology also provides a record of who has been in contact with others should someone test positive for the virus and the company needs to notify others. Positive feedback for rapid testing When companies that are doing the rapid testing ask employees why they like this approach, they come up with two answers: one, they feel good about being in a safer workplace; and two, they're more confident that, when they go home Nutrien sees results with rapid testing As a member of the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL)'s Rapid Screening Consortium, Nutrien has been piloting rapid antigen testing for its office and field employees. "We want our employees to be coming to work and not be distracted by anything that would take them away from their focus on what needs to be done and be done the safest possible way," says Michael Webb, executive vice president and chief HR and administrative officer in Calgary. And while accuracy was a concern initially, the rates are now up to 95 per cent, he says. "We're feeling much more confident with the rapid tests that we have today and their accuracy." Unlike EllisDon, the tests are not mandatory for Nutrien staff, and as people become more comfortable with the concept and greater numbers of people go back into the office, it's likely a tool that will be used more often, says Webb. "We've communicated that we wouldn't be returning to the office before July 1. As we get closer to that date, and if things continue to be positive, which they have, then we may roll it out more broadly to our corporate centres, certainly, and to the field operations," he says. "This is something that we're growing more comfortable with; the availability of it continues to grow as these tests are produced and released, and it could very well be a big part of our broader return to the workplace." Nutrien has also been testing a proximity monitoring device with roughly 8,000 employees and plans at the end of the day, they're not trans- mitters of the virus back to their family, says Janice Stein, a member of the CDL steering committee and founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Policy at the University of Toronto. "From an employer perspective, you don't want an infectious employee in the workplace... We call it breaking the chain of transmission. Because the one worker — and you don't know which one, that's the issue — can infect multiple people in the course of the day, and that person themself doesn't know they're sick, doesn't have symptoms and may never have symptoms, frankly, but they can infect others." While the downside of a false positive is not great, with somebody having to miss work to take a PCR test, the downside of an asymptomatic person bringing the virus in the workplace is really not good, she says. And while some employers may be concerned about the cost, they should consider the price of having to shut down a worksite for two weeks, as seen with Amazon's Brampton, Ont. location in March. "The losses from that far outweigh [the costs] if you were able to catch the few asymptomatics that might in fact be spreaders," says Stein, adding that, with many people being vaccinated at long-term care homes, "the chief site of outbreaks now is in the workplace." Plus, the screening continues to evolve, going from an average time of eight minutes to less than a minute and from a "brain tickle" or nasal pharyngeal swab to a more comfortable swab lower down in the nose, she says. There is also the possibility that people ONTARIO BOOSTS FREQUENCY OF RAPID TESTING "I'm not sure you can ever rightly discipline someone for disobeying a requirement to have a bodily intrusion." Daniel Michaluk, BLG can do testing at home virtually. "There's all kinds of new innovation that is taking place," says Stein. The most important thing is to do it consistently, says Catherine Connelly, professor of organizational behaviour at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. "It [should have] the same rules for everybody. So, if the VP is going to get a privately done temperature check and swab, then everybody should get that. There shouldn't be special rules for special people," she says. "Any good executive worth their salt would make sure that they are doing the screening in a very public way so that everybody does see them." Rogers rolls out pilot program Rogers is also involved with CDL's Rapid Screening Consortium, rolling out a pilot program with workers in Toronto, with the possibility of expanding the pilot to other teams and locations. The screening is done on a voluntary basis because most employees are working remotely. For those who are required to work on-site, there are 3 million Number of rapid antigen tests done in priority sectors as of March 2021 1 million Number of rapid antigen tests to be done each week as program expands 15 Number of minutes it takes for result from a rapid antigen test Source: Ontario government EllisDon construction site in Toronto.

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