Canadian HR Reporter

PM40065782 RO9496 March 24, 2014 INSIDE NOT GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION Leaders of HR associations across Canada reveal what's on the 2014 agenda Failing grade Ontario employers slow to embrace accessibility laws page 3 Pay equity law defeated Court gives Quebec 1 year to make fi xes to legislation page 5 Executive series Best practices when it comes to dealing with boards of directors page 10 page 13 McGill's Mini-MBA Program in Calgary Capture key learning points of an MBA in a concise 8-day format Network with an outstanding group of peers and professors Understand new management trends to boost your career 9 9 9 For more information, contact us at 1 888 419 0707 or visit executive.mcgill.ca/mini-MBA BEGINS JUN 4 , 2014 th ► executive@mcgill.ca | follow us Ugly, racist altercation Ugly, racist altercation caught on video at Sears caught on video at Sears Worker suspended, fi red – but there are lessons to be learned Worker suspended, fi red – but there are lessons to be learned BY SARAH DOBSON A SHAKY video that captured an altercation between an irate customer and a Sears Canada em- ployee at a Winnipeg store raises questions about training for front- line staff . Filmed after the customer was asked to remove his children from the lawn tractors on display, the 90-second video shows the sales- person saying to the man "Let me guess, you just came off the boat?" e customer then demands the employee be fi red for the racial slur and starts swearing at him. Just before the video ends, a secu- rity person shows up. The video quickly went viral — but Sears reacted quickly too. After making an initial announce- ment two days later that the em- ployee had been suspended, it later said he had been fi red. "We have a code of conduct, a code of ethics and we also have a respect in the workplace policy, and those were broken, basically," said Vincent Power , vice-president of corporate affairs and com- munications at Sears Canada in Toronto. "When we say we have zero tol- erance for something, we have to take action. ere's 20,000 other employees looking on to see what we're going to do and there's just some things that we can't give a break on." e company's loss-prevention team led an investigation of the incident, said Power, adding Sears had to be careful considering the man was a long-term employee. "For us to have taken termina- tion action on the spot would not have been fair to him, but we con- ducted it as quickly as we could." While Sears seemed to handle the situation well after the fact, the salesperson did not handle the situation properly in the fi rst place, according to Lisa Hutcheson, se- nior advisor at retail experts J.C. Williams Group in Toronto. "Obviously (the comment) was out of line and unprofessional and, regardless of those kinds of cir- cumstances, the employee didn't handle it appropriately," she said. " e front-line staff are the image of the organization and how they interact with customers is very important." e situation could have been handled diff erently, said Paul er- rien, vice-president of labour rela- tions and HR consulting at Legacy 'Subtle' behavioural cues 'Subtle' behavioural cues predict turnover: Study predict turnover: Study BY SARAH DOBSON EMPLOYEES WHO are think- ing of leaving their jobs may give off subtle cues others can pick up on — if they look closely enough. And these would-be quitters might not even know they're dis- playing such behaviour, according to a study out of Utah State Uni- versity in Logan. " ere's been a ton of research on what factors cause employees to leave a company or stay with a company — in terms of their pay and benefits and how satisfied they are with their job and their supervisors — and this study takes a little bit of a diff erent approach in trying to see: Are there behav- ioural cues that employees… give off that might be noticed by super- visors and co-workers?" said Chad Van Iddekinge, associate professor of management at Florida State University in Tallahassee. "It's similar to what's been done in the past but it's a diff erent kind of approach to try to understand turnover and what leads up to it." One issue most employees have in common before they leave is disengagement from the work- place in the one or two months before they leave, found the study. The 18 consistent behavioural Engineer ruling Engineer ruling sparks foreign sparks foreign credential debate credential debate Human rights decision could set Human rights decision could set unwelcome precedent for associations unwelcome precedent for associations BY LIZ BERNIER IT'S A CASE surrounded by thorny issues: A foreign-trained engineer with two master's degrees is unable to meet the requirements to practise engineering in Canada, leaving him underemployed and unable to use his training. Ladislav Mihaly — who trained as an engineer in Czechoslovakia — was assigned a set of technical confi rmatory exams to confi rm his education. He refused to write SOCIAL > pg. 12 MANAGERS > pg. 2 ASSOCIATION > pg. 6 WEST IS BEST Photo: Dan Riedlhuber (Reuters) Trucks transporting a cracking reactor take up an entire two-lane highway east of Redwater, Alta., on their way to the site of a new refinery in February. Alberta's economy is booming — that's not a surprise — but recent Statistics Canada data shows the province was responsible for nearly all (87 per cent) of the new jobs created in the country in the last 12 months. Ontario and Saskatchewan were the only other pro vinces to see net employment gains, but nothing on the scale of what's happening in Wild Rose Country. See page 4 for more jobs data.

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