Canadian HR Reporter

N E W S 12 www.hrreporter.com Protecting employee privacy as more people work from home With the dramatic rise in employees working from home amid the pandemic, employers should strive to maintain worker privacy when it comes to video calls, after-hours work and monitoring software, says John Dujay in talking to the experts software to gauge employee's pro- ductivity and engagement. And while the temptation may be there to install or ramp up such technology with more people at home, employers should consider whether the monitoring is necessary to meet a specific need or issue, says Anna Abbott, an employment lawyer at Blake Cassels & Graydon in Toronto. "If it's just precautionary — rather than in response to something that the employer is seeing happening in the workplace — it may be harder to justify from a privacy perspective." Then, employers need to consider what type of monitoring to put in place and how it's going to be effective to meet the need or address the issue that's been identified, she says. Company policies should also be updated to reflect this new way of conducting day-to-day business, says Justine Lindner, an associate in the labour and employment law group at McCarthy Tétrault in Toronto. "Employers should look at updating their technology and/or their work-from- home or telecommuting policies and ensuring that, in preparing those policies, that employees have to acknowledge or sign them back," she says. "A lot of the video conferencing services provide the ability to put up a blank digital background, so I would encourage that as part of policy or practice, so that there isn't any personal information of employees or others that gets involved in the video conferencing," says Ryan Berger, a partner at Lawson Lundell in Vancouver. "Not every employee went into the pandemic with lots of space to set up a grand home office, and many are working at their kitchen table or even a dresser in their one-bedroom apartment. But even there, they should be able to set up their device so that the video conference doesn't reveal anything other than the shoulders and head of the employee and a wall or something behind them." In addition, employers should be wary of automatically recording meetings, he says. " The employer has to have a reasonable basis to collect that employee information. There may be some cases in which that's appropriate, but I would typically recommend that not be the prevailing policy and that any recording would be an exception and, of course, the employee should be notified of that recording in advance." Monitoring considerations Even before the surge in remote work, many employers were using monitoring "With that explicit acknowledgement, you're setting clear expectations and guidelines for employees on what the employer may require of them and what the employer expects around the use of technology in particular. Many employers, especially when you raise the issue of monitoring, that's often a primary concern." Sometimes, employers need to be creative in establishing buy-in from employees, according to a tech executive of a company that helps people manage privacy online. "Sometimes, throwing a carrot in with a stick is an effective best practice we' ve seen HR departments do successfully. I boil it down to a clarity of communication and is there something in it for the employee because, as an employee, if all you're telling me is, 'Hey, you're going to watch my activities because now I'm not working in the office,' that doesn't exactly make me feel great about my employer [but] it's nice if the employer has something that's a sweetener or something that's also perceived positively by the employees," "A lot of the video services provide the ability to put up a blank background. I would encourage that as part of policy or practice." Ryan Berger, Lawson Lundell Angeletti WITH so many people working from home these days, the line between a person's professional life and personal life has blurred. But that doesn't mean employers have a right to cross the line, and there are several considerations around privacy they should keep in mind, say experts. For one, video tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Skype expose the home space of employees, be it their kitchen, dining room or bedroom. To that end, employers and HR might want to encourage some attempt at privacy. SNOOPING AROUND 70% Number of employers checking out candidates' social media profiles 69% Number of companies using search engines to research new hires 54% Number of employers that rejected hiring candidates based on their social media presence Source: CareerBuilder

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