Canadian HR Reporter

PM40065782 RO9496 October 6, 2014 INSIDE BACK TO BAY STREET Awards help women return from leave to take senior roles in banking, finance Pensions pay off Regina police try out target retirement income plan page 9 Personal devices What kind of tech policy works best for employees? page 13 Provision pitfalls Specific notice entitlement a dangerous practice page 15 page 2 Part-time work on the rise But it's not the new normal, says TD study By Sarah DoBSon Part-time employment has been on the rise in Canada. Over the past year, it has easily outpaced full-time growth, according to a TD Economics report citing Sta- tistics Canada numbers. After increasing in the late 1970s and 1980s, part-time em- ployment was relatively flat until the 2008-09 recession, when full- time work was harder hit. As the economy improved, the part-time share fell back but, more recently, part-time has seen another surge — of the 95,000 job gains since De- cember 2013, about 60 per cent or 57,000 have been part-time. "Mid-2012 to mid-2013, we saw a fair bit of full-time job cre- ation but, at the same time, eco- nomic growth during that period was pretty modest," said Randall Bartlett, senior economist at TD Economics in Toronto and co- author of the report. "Now, we see the opposite hap- pening, where we've got economic growth in the last quarter of 3.1 per cent but we're actually seeing a larger part-time job creation in the second quarter of the year and over the last year as whole." e job market is still struggling to gain traction and the labour market "has become increasingly tilted toward part-time employ- ment," according to TD's Part- Time Nation: Is Canada Becoming a Nation of Part-Time Employed? But this looks like an indication of a weak labour market, rather than some kind of shift from em- ployers, said Angella MacEwen, senior economist at the Canadian Labour Congress in Ottawa. "People are getting part-time hours because the work just isn't there," she said. "ere were some more full-time jobs that were cre- ated in the initial recovery from the recession, but now we're see- ing a part-time surge again and that seems to be just part of busi- ness confidence... and a lot of that is involuntary part-time." e relationship between full- and part-time work is complex and Statistics Canada uses a bit of an ar- bitrary definition, according to Ted Mallett, vice-president and chief economist at the Canadian Fed- eration of Independent Business in Toronto. Working fewer than 30 hours per week is considered part- time, so if an hourly worker drops from 32 hours to 28 hours, she's of- ficially become part-time. "Even with a fairly small move- ment in the number of hours, they've category-jumped in that respect, and I think we're probably seeing a lot of that — both on the upside and downside — over the years, with the business cycle the way it moves," he said. "Given that we've had a bit of slowdown in the late part of 2013 and then early 2014, it had this kind of effect — a chill on the la- bour market in general." Canada is not becoming a na- tion of part-timers, said Bartlett, but there are underlying factors that could see part-time work in- crease somewhat. What's behind the numbers? Since 1997, women have consis- tently made up about 70 per cent of part-time employment, said the TD report. And the gap between SHIFTING > pg. 11 Performance review or personal attack? Are women more likely than men to receive 'personality criticism' in reviews? By Liz Bernier Kieran Snyder was chat- ting with a friend about his per- formance reviews when he men- tioned one of his direct reports was talented — but "abrasive." She was being considered for a promo- tion but her personality seemed to be a stumbling block for her manager. "is is a really good guy, con- cerned with fairness," said Snyder. "e way he described one of the women on his team… made me wonder whether he'd actually write that into a formal document." at conversation was the cata- lyst for Snyder — a Seattle-based linguist, technology professional and CEO of her own startup, Kidgrid — to do a little research. "I've worked in tech for many years and held leadership roles at major tech companies," she said. "I have generally received strong re- views. But while the reviews often call out my business and technical contribution, they have frequent- ly included personality feedback — I've heard words like abrasive, emotional (and) aggressive a lot. For many years, I thought it was just me. I'm sure I have things to work on, but I got curious about how pervasive the pattern was." Snyder collected 248 perfor- mance reviews from 180 different people — 105 men and 75 women. Her findings? Women were much Trouble at home NFL scandal highlights challenges for employers when it comes to domestic violence By Liz Bernier it waS a Scandal that dominated headlines for weeks: NFL star Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens was caught on an eleva- tor security camera punching his then-fiancée in the face, appar- ently knocking her unconscious. Rice initially faced criminal charges, which were dropped. He also faced a two-game suspension from the NFL, which was upgrad- ed to an indefinite suspension af- ter the video was leaked. Baltimore terminated his contract. Although high-profile, the case is just one example of the millions of domestic violence cases that oc- cur in North America each year. In Canada alone, about 3,300 women sleep in shelters each night to es- cape abuse; one-half of all Cana- dian women have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since age 16, ac- cording to Statistics Canada. While the NFL has its own pro- cedures for dealing with domestic violence, what should Canadian employers do when domestic vio- lence moves into the workplace? e response will depend on the individual situation, said Barbara MacQuarrie, community direc- tor of the Centre for Research & TAKE > pg. 8 EMPLOYERS > pg. 6 Corporate Outplacement Services CMScareers.ca Leaving made Easier HR_Reporter_SmallAd_2014_Layout 1 1 Credit: Patrick Semansky (AP/CP) Janay Rice, left, sits beside her husband, former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, during a May 2014 news conference. Rice was caught on video physically assaulting Janay — who was his fiancée at the time — in February 2014. He has since been suspended indefinitely from the NFL, a decision he has appealed. Credit: Bufflerump/Shutterstock

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