Canadian HR Reporter

PM40065782 RO9496 April 7, 2014 INSIDE BETTER THAN 20/20 VISION Augmented reality – like Google Glass – is set to revolutionize the workplace Not enough evidence CP Rail off track in dismissing worker it thought was drunk page 5 Missing employees Dire circumstances – like Malaysian Airlines fl ight 370 – call for sensitivity page 6 Weird Workplace We reveal Canada's least common occupation. Hint: It helped build the nation page 18 Corporate Outplacement Services CMScareers.ca Leaving made Easier page 11 'You make how much?' 'You make how much?' At Whole Foods, salary information is readily At Whole Foods, salary information is readily available – but is that too much information? available – but is that too much information? BY SARAH DOBSON WHEN IT COMES to money, Whole Foods has nothing to hide. The 80,000-employee grocery chain — which touts healthy, or- ganic living — has an open-book policy that allows any employee to see the compensation of another. "This is just another avenue where we can share information with our team members that we think engenders trust and trans- parency and, in a sense, levels the playing fi eld for everybody in that we have nothing to hide," said Mark Ehrnstein, Austin-based ex- ecutive director of team member services at Whole Foods. A curious employee can request the report — which includes infor- mation on the organization's 2,025 Canadian employees — from an in-store HR representative and, once given access, can take notes but can't copy or take the report home. " e wage disclosure report can promote conversations between team members and their team leader about their compensation and where they fi t in the team," said Ehrnstein. " at team mem- ber may be motivated to do better in their job or to get another job to earn more pay." It's impossible to say how many organizations follow this philoso- phy but it's fair to say it's rare — especially in Canada. However, more organizations could — and should — hop on the pay trans- parency bandwagon, according to Peter MacLeod, principal and co-founder of public consultation firm MASS in Toronto, which adopted an open compensation policy several years ago. "To me, (a closed policy) just erodes that kind of esprit de corps that you want to have as an orga- nization and it reinforces bad hab- its of hierarchy and makes what should be a common enterprise a sharply divided fi eld of winners and losers within the company itself. at doesn't make sense to me." As a startup, MASS' open com- pensation policy made sense, he said. "I wanted to make it really clear that I had as much skin in the game, that I wasn't going to take a penny more myself to make sure that I could pay everyone closer to what I thought they were worth. So really it was about morale and it was about fostering a sense of a team… and it just stuck, in part because I've maintained pretty close parity amongst the salary levels." At six-employee MASS, all staff with one year of service earn $67,500 per year while fi rst-year staff earn $55,500 and part-time staff earn either of the two rates on a pro-rata basis, according to the website. "Maybe it limits who we can ac- tually recruit… but it also makes for a very straightforward salary negotiation," said MacLeod. Compensation is an issue peo- ple often dwell on or grouse about, he said. "So why not get rid of any of that anxiety that comes from people's salaries being private?" he said. PRIVACY > pg. 10 Credit: Jason Franson/The Canadian Press Police tape off the area in the aftermath of an attack at a Loblaw warehouse in Edmonton that killed two and injured four others. An employee stands accused. A tale of 2 labour markets A tale of 2 labour markets ere's Alberta — and then there's the rest of Canada ere's Alberta — and then there's the rest of Canada BY LIZ BERNIER IT'S A statistic that provides a pretty good snapshot of Canada's labour market as of late: In the past year, Alberta has been responsible for 87 per cent of all new job cre- ation in the country. e province created 82,300 of the 94,700 total jobs created since early 2013, and its employment rate rose by 3.8 per cent, accord- ing to Statistics Canada. "We're seeing far and away much stronger job growth in Al- berta than really anywhere else in the country," said Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto. "Over the past year, outside Al- berta there's been no net job cre- ation in Canada, when you sum all the other provinces together. So it's pretty striking right now, the gap in performance." And that gap seems to be getting more dramatic over time. "It was pretty dramatic back in 2005, 2006, 2007... It basically stalled or turned around during the recession and early in the re- covery, but now you're seeing that gap open up again," he said. " e diff erence is becoming more strik- ing as time goes on." ' e West and the rest' A year ago, Saskatchewan likely would have been lumped in with Alberta as a key driver of job growth, according to Nick Bishop, senior principal at Hay Group in Calgary. "What's changed this year, be- cause of the falloff in the price of potash, is Saskatchewan is still doing very well — but it's not on fi re like it was for the last fi ve years. So now we really are down to Al- berta and the rest," he said. Within Alberta, there's been signifi cant growth in key sectors such as construction and energy, said Vincent Ferrao, analyst, la- bour statistics division, at Statis- tics Canada in Ottawa. "Construction has grown fairly strong by about 25,000 over the 12-month period. Also the natural resources — that would be mostly oil and gas — that has increased by 21,000 or 13 per cent over 12 months," he said. Alberta's strong oil and gas sector is creating opportunities beyond its borders as well. B.C. > pg. 9 Picking up Picking up the pieces the pieces Getting back to normal Getting back to normal no easy task following double no easy task following double murder at Edmonton warehouse murder at Edmonton warehouse BY LIZ BERNIER JAYME PASIEKA was on his way to work on Feb. 28 when he stopped at a military surplus store to buy two large knives. Shortly after arriving for his shift at a Loblaw warehouse in Ed- monton, Pasieka — who was wear- ing a bulletproof vest — allegedly began a brutal stabbing rampage that left two dead and four injured. Pasieka, 29, is currently standing trial for several charges in relation to the incident. In the meantime, his co-workers — and his employ- er — are forced to cope with the aftermath of the brutal attack. A violent incident in the work- place creates shockwaves on many diff erent and complex levels, ac- cording to Glenn French, Toronto- based president of the Canadian Initiative on Workplace Violence. " ere is an environmental im- pact, there's witness and bystander impact and, of course, there's the impact on the individual (victim) — and the individual's family, for that matter," he said. "It's really complex. It's much simpler when you look at the in- dividual target — the individual who's actually been assaulted… REVIEW > pg. 8

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