www.hrreporter.com 11
and discharge for off-duty conduct that
touches on the employer's reputation,
says Ritu Mahil, a partner at Lawson
Lundell in Vancouver.
"[It's about:] Is it harming the
company's reputation or product?
Does it render the employee unable to
perform his or her duty satisfactorily?
Does it lead to any kind of reluctance on
other employees or clients to work with
that person?"
It's also about looking at all the factors,
including the person's seniority, if the
employer has a social media policy
she says. "It wouldn't hurt either to
set out the process for responding to
these incidents. Because it's not always
going to be just cause off the bat. So,
progressive discipline and the like,
investigations of social media and
providing guidelines for your managers
— all that's useful to have in the
policy also."
Why a policy makes sense
To establish just cause for the breach of
a social media policy, it's about having
a policy in place that justifies discipline
and if there was any warning that this
kind of thing may lead to some sort of
discipline.
"You have to be fair and reasonable as
an employer," she says.
But an employer also has to decide how
it will enforce the policy and provide
training around it, says Mahil.
"You can't just say, 'Oh, we developed a
policy.' It's not fair just to put something
in writing in the back of the employee
handbook. People have to be aware of
what it says, what it means and what are
the consequences of breaching it."
CHRR
"It wouldn't hurt to
set out the process
for responding to
incidents, because
it won't always be
just cause."
Isabelle Keeler,
Cox & Palmer
HR_AD_REVISED_JAN8_2020.indd 1 2020-01-08 10:31 AM
