Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER CANADIAN HR REPORTER March 24, 2014 March 24, 2014 26 26 INSIGHT INSIGHT Employees must Employees must always take high road always take high road Some people are just jerks. at applies to CEOs and front-line customer service reps. It applies to salespeople and it ap- plies to customers. It applies to neigh- bours, co-workers and drivers on the road — it's just an unfortunate fact of life. Some people are always jerks; some just temporarily turn into idiots when backed into a corner or if they're having a particularly bad day. It's hard to know exactly what category of jerk they fi t into, but two of them came face to face at a Sears store in Winnipeg. And, as is always the case these days, a camera was rolling. (See "Ugly, racist altercation caught on tape at Sears," page 1.) What was posted to social me- dia was an ugly exchange between a Sears salesperson and an irate customer. It started innocently enough — the worker allegedly asked the customer to take his children off a lawnmower that was on display in the store, though that portion wasn't on the video clip I saw. After the Sears employee — who was a "long-tenured" work- er, according to the retail chain — said security had been notifi ed, the customer proceeded to insult the employee by saying, "Let me guess, you came from Domo?" (Domo is a gas station chain.) And the employee responded with a curt "You just came off the boat?" e employee was suspended, and ultimately fi red. No doubt that was the appropriate response — though you'd be hard-pressed to fi nd an employment lawyer who would say every employer would be justifi ed in fi ring an employee who made a racist comment. ere are far too many vari- ables at play — even catching an employee stealing doesn't always amount to just cause for termina- tion in Canada. But in this case, Sears seems to be on pretty solid ground. Even if it were to ultimately lose a wrong- ful dismissal lawsuit, it couldn't not act decisively — not with its customers watching and not if it wants the 20,000 Sears employees in Canada to know making a rac- ist comment towards a customer is completely unacceptable and won't be tolerated. So score a victory for Sears and the way it was handled post-inci- dent by management and its HR department — but also cue up a review of the training procedures for salespeople. No doubt behind closed doors there is a navel-gazing exercise occurring to see what the depart- ment store chain could have done better on the training front so its customer-facing staff know it's unacceptable to insult customers, especially with a racial slur. Like many organizations, Sears appears to rely heavily on online training for staff — who are scat- tered at stores across the country. In-person workshops seem less prevalent. With face-to-face training, staff have to wait until there's a class and enough people to join, according to Vince Power, vice-president of corporate aff airs and communica- tions for Sears Canada in Toronto. at means employees can be on the fl oor with only online training and having to sign a code of con- duct under their belt. That's all fine and well but there's a big diff erence between being presented with an ugly situation during a simulation — choosing from multiple choice canned answers on a computer screen — and being faced with an unpredictable, fast-moving situa- tion on the fl oor. For that, some role playing is in order — it certainly costs more but it should prove more eff ective in giving salespeople the skills they need to defuse tense situations. But it's not a panacea. ere are limits to how much training, in- vestment and policies can accom- plish. I guarantee the salesperson knew he shouldn't have said what he said. As soon as the words crossed his lips, I'm guessing (and hoping) he regretted it. I don't know this guy from Adam but there's a decent chance his neighbours will say something like "He's a good guy. He's the last one I'd expect to make a racist comment." Another thing to remind staff is the cameras are always rolling. In the Netfl ix series House of Cards (spoiler alert here) journalist Zoe Barnes is off ered the job of chief White House correspondent by her editor. She doesn't want the gig, calling it a graveyard where "news goes to die." In response, the grizzled edi- tor insults her. And she says, "Re- member, these days, when you're talking to one person, you're talk- ing to a thousand." at's a line that should be in- cluded in all training for custom- er-facing employees. B.C. RETROACTIVELY FIXES LEGISLATIVE GAFFE VICTORIA — e British Colum- bia government has introduced legislation to correct an oversight that technically meant there was no chair of its Employment Standards Tribunal between Feb. 13, 2009, and Oct. 5, 2011. e legislation, which the province called "legal housekeeping," was introduced on March 10 and will apply retroactively. It confi rms the appointment of Brent Mul- lin as chair during that period, and it also confi rms the valid- ity of all decisions rendered by the tribunal in that period. RECRUITMENT RIOT IN SWEDEN STOCKHOLM — Police dispersed an angry crowd of jobseekers outside a Stockholm employment offi ce in February after it called 61,000 people for a recruitment meeting by mistake. "Something has gone wrong with the mailing list... it has set off a very messy situation at the city offi ce," said Clas Olsson, acting director of the employment offi ce. Only 1,000 people were supposed to be invited. Sweden's unemploy- ment rate sat at 8.6 per cent in February. BUT WHAT HOLIDAYS NEED TO BE ACCOMMODATED? POMFRET, N.Y. — Here's a religion you probably haven't encountered in your workplace yet: e Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That's the religion Christopher Schaeff er belongs to — he's a Pas- tafarian minister who was elected to council in the Town of Pomfret. He wore a colander on his head during the swearing-in ceremony, according to the Huffi ngton Post. e religion was founded by an atheist in 2005 and the colander is its symbol. "It's just a statement about religious freedom," he told the local Observer newspaper. THEY DIDN'T COVER THIS IN ORIENTATION BOCA RATON, FLA. — A woman was arrested after she repeatedly called police from a shopping cart out- side Publix, a Florida grocery store chain. Her complaint? A store employee was harassing her be- cause he wanted the cart — which was store property — back. e woman, 40-year-old Catherine Dajnowski, called 911 three times. During the third call, there was actually an offi cer standing next to the cart. e offi cer ordered the woman to hand the cart back to the store employee, and she was charged with misusing an emer- gency line. A SIGN YOU MAY NEED A NEW DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SAFETY RIVER FOREST, ILL. — Tim Margis, a 38-year-old director of public safety at Concordia University, was arrested in February after allegedly masturbating into the shoe of a female university em- ployee. Police were called after an employee saw Margis leave her of- fi ce while buttoning up his pants and fastening his belt, according to the Oak Leaves newspaper. A university spokesperson said he has been suspended and banned from campus. W EIRD ORKPLACE THE BIG BROTHER'S HIDING IN YOUR ID BADGE LONDON, U.K. — Privacy may be a thing of the past, but Hitachi is . taking it to the next level with technology embedded in employ- ee ID cards that tracks every movement they make. e badges can track an employee's exact location and also keeps records of all of the other staff members he has talked to — including for how long and how energetically, according to Britain's Daily Mail newspaper. It's called Business Microscope and, yes — it even will track how long a staff er spends in the washroom. Vol. 27 No. 6 – March 24, 2014 PUBLISHED BY PUBLISHED BY Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ©Copyright 2014 by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. CANADIAN HR REPORTER CANADIAN HR REPORTER is published 22 times a year. 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Address changes and returns: Send changes and undeliverable Canadian addresses to: SUBSCRIBER SERVICES SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Canadian HR Reporter One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ❑ From time to time, we make our subscriber list available to companies and organizations whose products and services we believe may be of interest to you. If you do not want your name to be made available, please check here and return with your mailing label. CUSTOMER SERVICE CUSTOMER SERVICE Call: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5082 (Toronto) (877) 750-9041 (outside Toronto) Email: carswell.customerrelations@ thomsonreuters.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com CHRR reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. "I don't know where this idea came from that organizations are recommended to get their first HR person at 100 to 150 employees. I suspect it was extrapolated from the concept that a large orga- nization might have one HR person per 100 employees, and even that type of generalization doesn't take into account the breadth of services an HR department provides. I recommend we stop saying that a company's first HR person is needed around 100 employees. (How's this: You only need your first finance person when you reach $1 million in revenue, not before. See how ludicrous that sounds?) HR people are required way before the 100-employee mark. A company may start out with a casual, independent HR consultant as an advisor, then retain that independent HR consultant for regular consultation, then have a part-time HR person on staff (even with 30 or so employees), then grow to have a full-time HR employee at perhaps 50 or 60 employees. Starting the company on the right foot should be the goal of small companies, before bad policies and habits develop that require significant retraining and cultural adjust- ments to correctly align policies." — Andrea Zanetti, commenting on David Crisp's blog "The role for HR in the no-HR organization." Join the conversation online. Comment freely on any blog on www.hrreporter.com. READER COMMENTS Todd Humber Editor's Notes Credit: lucadp /Shutterstock

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