Canadian HR Reporter

PM40065782 RO9496 April 21, 2014 INSIDE THE PRODUCTIVITY KILLERS A smooth running offi ce doesn't necessarily mean your fi rm doesn't have toxic teams Crystal ball gazing Student competition offers glimpse of 2040 working world page 3 Sobriety check Suncor vows to carry on fi ght for random drug, alcohol testing page 5 Price check on engagement Shoppers Drug Mart puts focus on technology, BYOD – and engagement soars page 13 page 11 UNIFOR EYES TOYOTA Photo: Mark Blinch (Reuters) Unifor members stand outside the Toyota plant in Cambridge, Ont. The union is attempting to organize workers at Toyota's Canadian plants, but a vote scheduled earlier this month was postponed by Unifor after it found out there were more workers employed at the plant than it thought. If the drive is successful, it will be the first Toyota plant in North America to unionize. Losing sleep Losing sleep over losing sleep over losing sleep Disruptions in sleep cycle could Disruptions in sleep cycle could lead to permanent brain damage lead to permanent brain damage BY LIZ BERNIER MISSING OUT on one night of shut-eye shouldn't hurt you. But disrupt the sleep cycle for a longer period of time and your body — and your brain — won't be able to recover so easily. at was the central fi nding in a University of Pennsylvania study that found chronic sleep depriva- tion — like that experienced by many shift workers — could actu- ally damage neurons in the brain. e fi ndings indicate that the idea of quickly making up for a "sleep debt" isn't really accurate, said Sigrid Veasey, associate pro- fessor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "If you were to take one night and do a short-term sleep loss, that's probably OK — you can probably quickly make that up with a nap. But what (much) of our society is doing is repeatedly short-changing the sleep all across the week, and then hoping to make it up on the weekend. And that's what we think doesn't really hap- pen," she said. Lasting eff ects of sleep loss It's not so easy to bounce back from repeated interruptions in Mind the Mind the benefi ts gap benefi ts gap Health insurance spending jumps – Health insurance spending jumps – but there's a widening gap between but there's a widening gap between premiums paid in, benefi ts paid out premiums paid in, benefi ts paid out BY LIZ BERNIER SPENDING ON private health insurance in Canada has more than doubled since 1991 — but a recent analysis indicates we may not be getting much bang for our buck. e overall gap between pre- miums paid in and benefi ts paid out totalled $6.8 billion in 2011, according to " e Increasing Inef- fi ciency of Private Health Insur- ance in Canada" in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. at gap between the premiums insurers take in and the amount they pay out in benefi ts has in- creased threefold over the past 20 years, found the paper. And the widening gap should raise some critical questions for employers. "What this paper shows is the for-profit private insurance in- dustry in Canada, in particular, does what for-profi t insurers tend to do, which is to maximize rev- enues and minimize payouts," said Steven Lewis, a health policy con- sultant based in Saskatoon. "Over time, the profits have grown considerably and it should raise questions for both the em- ployers and the individuals about whether or not this is a sensible way to provide, in most cases, supplementary health care." Who's hit the hardest? The widening premiums-to- payouts gap is of concern to all employers but it's even more dra- matic for smaller to medium-sized employers and individuals, ac- cording to Michael Law, assistant professor at the Centre for Health SCANT > pg. 9 SLEEPINESS > pg. 7 Anti-spam law deadline looms Anti-spam law deadline looms CASL could impact policies, recruitment and training CASL could impact policies, recruitment and training BY SARAH DOBSON WITH CANADA'S anti-spam legislation — CASL — set to come into force July 1, HR professionals have some legwork to do to en- sure their organizations don't run afoul of the rules that restrict how businesses can communicate with each other and the public via email and text. Workers will need training and policies may need to be rewritten — and that includes a review of how HR departments, and recruit- ers in particular, are using email to fi nd candidates. But fi rst it's a matter of under- standing the new rules. e fed- eral law is meant to deter "damag- ing and deceptive forms" of spam while encouraging the growth of electronic commerce "by ensur- ing confi dence and trust in the online marketplace," according to the government. But it's a very technical statute and there are a lot of exceptions to the rules, said Sylvia Kingsmill, se- nior manager from enterprise risk services at Deloitte in Toronto. "One of the challenges has been to interpret what the rules mean and how to operationalize them." e act was three years in the making, and it wasn't until De- cember 2013 that the federal gov- ernment announced that most of the provisions would kick in this summer, she said. " at is not a long window to comply with so some organiza- tions will have to short-circuit their compliance plans to ensure they're 100 per cent compliant by the July 1 deadline." e way the law was drafted is quite complex in that you also have to go to the regulations to fi nd out if you can benefi t from exceptions — so it's circular, said Tricia Kuhl, a partner at Blakes in Montreal. "It's challenging for most indi- viduals to understand what is ex- actly exempt and what is covered by the law," she said. Among the various G7 coun- tries, Canada has the most oner- ous version of anti-spam law, ac- cording to Kelly Nicholson, a part- ner at Field Law in Calgary. "It ends up regulating almost all electronic messages that are sent for commercial purpose and, probably more problematically… what CASL does is impose an opt- in consent regime as opposed to an opt-out regime, which is what we see in the U.S., for example." For many organizations, the task of becoming compliant is go- ing to be diffi cult, he said. "It's certainly on the minds of organizations throughout Canada — and should be, because this is big, scary federal legislation that casts a wide net and carries very signifi cant penalties for breach." e basic rules Generally, the new CASL re- quirements state the sender must obtain consent from a recipient before sending a commercial elec- tronic message (CEM), and must include information that identifi es the sender and enables the recipi- ent to withdraw consent. The requirements around ex- press consent and implied consent are diffi cult to grasp, said Nichol- son. ere are three areas of im- plied consent but knowing when a TRANSITIONAL > pg. 2

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