Canadian HR Reporter

Next AODA deadline just weeks away Ontario rules cover recruitment, performance management BY SARAH DOBSON LESS THAN three months away, the next deadline under the Ac- cessibility for Ontarians with Dis- abilities Act, 2005 (AODA) looms large. And it shouldn't be taken lightly by employers. e employ- ment standards piece features 11 obligations, including recruit- ment, performance management and return to work programs. It's really quite an involved standard, said Doug MacLeod, principal of MacLeod Law Firm in Toronto. " is really is going to permeate the hiring and HR process at most employers with 50 (employees) or more, and it's going to require, in many cases, numerous changes and, more likely, new policies as opposed to revised policies or ad- ditions to existing policies." But there's still time for employ- ers to comply by the Jan. 1, 2016, deadline, he said. "Once employers are aware of the obligations, they can quickly go through their HR processes and fi gure out where things need to be, where the additions need to be plugged in." e employment standards part of AODA is really about policy and communication, according to Cynthia Ingram, head of the employment and labour group at Keyser Mason Ball in Toronto. "Communication being the PM40065782 RO9496 October 19, 2015 Emplo y ment Law Today Canad a ian www.employmentlawtoday.com www.EmploymentLawToday.com Expert opinions from the best employment lawyers in Canada CELT1504-2015 ad.indd 1 2015-01-09 11:07 AM INSIDE NOT LOST IN TRANSLATION Accepting, embracing cultural differences key to international success Suicidal thoughts Workplace bullying can have dire consequences, nds study page 6 The doubters Convincing the skeptics mental illness is real page 16 Number-crunching Employers successfully using HR analyltics page 20 page 10 A shirtless Xavier Broseta, executive vice-president for HR and labour relations at Air France, is evacuated by security after employees interrupted a meeting with representative staff at the Air France headquarters in Roissy, France, on Oct. 5. The airline is planning to cut 2,900 jobs by 2017 and shed 14 aircraft as part of efforts to lower costs, said union sources. PROCESS > pg. 8 RULE > pg. 2 Credit: Jacky Naegelen (Reuters) Is on-call on the way out? Push for fairer scheduling practices in U.S., Ontario puts on-call shifts under microscope BY LIZ BERNIER JOBS in the retail and hospitality sectors aren't generally lauded for being stable and predictable — but unions and labour activists are try- ing to change that. Fairer scheduling practices, ad- vance notice of shifts, even guar- anteed minimums for work hours are among the recent recommen- dations from advocates — and some employers are sitting up and taking note. After an inquiry by New York's attorney general into the legality of on-call shifts at 13 large retail employers, the Gap announced in August it would be ending on-call shifts altogether and would pro- vide 10 to 14 days' notice of work schedules for employees. " is is something that we're in- creasingly seeing being examined in the United States. So states like Massachusetts and Oregon and I think most notably New York have really taken a lead in examin- ing fair scheduling practices, and some of the more, I would say, inhumane aspects of the on-call workplace," said Andrew Lang- ille, a labour lawyer and advocate based in Toronto. "What's happened in New York recently is the attorney general was pursuing legal action against some of the big retail players, and was able to extract some promises out of them. And this is some- thing that we're seeing refl ected in Canada." After the Gap's announcement, the issue started to gain more trac- tion and media attention, accord- ing to Angelo DiCaro, a Milton, Ont.-based researcher for the union Unifor specializing in retail and hospitality sectors. Unifor has been negotiating fairer scheduling practices with management at grocery stores such as Metro, he said. "It's taken some negotiating (but) I think the employers have been receptive to these proposals." But only a sliver of the retail in- dustry is heavily unionized, and that tends to be in supermarkets, said DiCaro — so there's a need for legislated standards around fair scheduling. 'Gaping hole' in employment standards On-call shifts aren't always mis- used by employers and in some industries, they can be necessary and expected, said DiCaro. "The challenge, though, and what we're hearing, is (about) us- ing on-call scheduling in more of an abusive way, where people are told, 'We may not actually tell you when you're scheduled — we just want you to sit by the phone and we may call you, we may not call you.' And that part of the concept of on-call is not totally fair," he said. "For instance, we've negotiated contract language that sets rules Wanted: Execs with media expertise Recent events highlight need for media-trained leaders BY LIZ BERNIER WHEN pharma CEO Martin Shkreli faced widespread outrage after making dramatic price in- creases to a medication his com- pany purchased, he took to Twitter to respond. "You are such a moron," he tweeted to a journalist who had asked questions about the price rise. But the 32-year-old founder and CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals didn't stop there. As the questions and controversy continued, he responded by tweeting out lyrics to an Eminem song: "And it seems like the media immediately points a fi nger at me. So I point one back at them but not the index or the pinkie." Shkreli wasn't the only CEO to face serious media scrutiny over the past few weeks — Martin Winterkorn, former CEO of Volk- swagen, was also in the hot seat after the carmaker's emissions DO > pg. 14

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