Canadian HR Reporter

PM40065782 RO9496 November 16, 2015 INSIDE REWIRING LEADERSHIP Understanding how the brain works can help leaders improve their performance Flexing your work Why are some employers resistant to exible work? page 8 Grief counselling Each employee is different when dealing with loss page 17 TFWP turmoil Recent changes prove challenging for employers page 19 page 10 A 9th-grade class at Lisgar Collegiate Institute in Ottawa on Sept. 24. Generation Z were born roughly between 1996 and 2010 and are the newest generation to hit the workforce. Credit: Chris Wattie (Reuters) COVENANTS > pg. 2 WOMEN > pg. 6 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 Getting ready for gen Z How should employers respond to newest cohort? BY LIZ BERNIER THEY don't remember a world before the Internet, and waiting for anything — information, vali- dation, social interaction — is al- most a foreign concept. Generation Z, the newest generation to hit the workforce, includes people born roughly between 1996 and 2010. And the oldest are about to enter their 20s, so employers should be prepared, said Jason Kipps, managing direc- tor for Canada at employer brand- ing fi rm Universum in Toronto. "In just three years, the first wave of generation Z will enter the workforce — that's just 36 months from now," he said. "Leading Canadian companies are already executing on strate- gies to infl uence this generation's career choices. ese employers are rethinking the employer-em- ployee relationship, reaching out earlier and off ering more on-the- job education than is typical today. "By building infl uential relation- ships with their future candidates and employees, employers can also guide their future candidate's education choices and can encour- age course choices that will save the employer on future training costs." Almost 40 per cent of gen Z are afraid they won't fi nd a job that's a good fi t for their aptitude and per- sonality, according to a Universum survey of 50,000 young people from 46 countries. But if employers develop a strong understanding of this co- hort, their integration into the workforce will be much smoother, said Shari Angle, vice-president of special projects at Adecco Canada in Toronto. "Employers should take into consideration just the fact that there is a new generation com- ing in with diff erent expectations, a diff erent mentality, a diff erent way of working, a diff erent way of coming up in the world. And that's going to cause some adjustments on both ends." Diff erences from millennials Generation Z will not be a simple amplifi cation of gen Y, said Tracy Wymer, vice-president of work- place research and strategy at workplace design fi rm Knoll in San Francisco. "Unlike the millennials, they have had a signifi cant impact on mature technology, the iPads, the iPhones… they've been really in- grained into how they know the world and how they interact. ey don't know any better, to some de- gree. You present them with a rota- ry-dial phone and they're confused on where to even begin," he said. ose in generation Z are also strongly infl uenced by the eco- nomically challenging times they grew up in, said Kipps. "Because they grew up during the recession, their families may have been forced to stay savvy and innovative to stay on top of fi nances, and gen Z picked up on MOBILE > pg. 16 Corporate espionage alleged in railway dispute Are restrictive covenants eff ective? BY SARAH DOBSON CANADA'S two major railway companies are engaged in a feud over alleged corporate espionage, illustrating the challenges for em- ployers when employees leave — and competition and confi dential- ity are on the line. Canadian National Railway (CN) is alleging one of its former employees shared secret customer information with Canadian Pacifi c Railway (CP) to help lure clients and win market share, according to the Globe and Mail. In the suit, CN says it lost rev- enue and market share to CP after confi dential customer contracts, pricing information and the cor- porate business plan were down- loaded by Greg Shnerer, who then quit and went to work for CP. CN says a CP manager encouraged or directed Shnerer to take the con- fi dential data, in violation of CN's employment agreement. CN is looking to stop CP and its employees from using the infor- mation to solicit the business of any customers involved, a return of the "unjust gains" CP made as a result of the information and $2 million in damages, said the Globe. In response, CP said it will de- fend itself against the allegations and the client information is no longer available to CP employees or it was already available from customers. When it comes to this kind of activity, there are insiders who tar- get their own company, outsiders who target diff erent companies, and then there's a third group, which is growing, according to Eric Shaw, president of Consult- ing and Clinical Psychology in Washington, D.C.: "Insiders and outsiders combining, so it might be that an outsider would locate and co-op an insider or an insider who's become disgruntled might co-op an outsider." There's nothing stopping an employee from resigning from Female undergrads OK with some bullying behaviours Isolation, teasing considered morally acceptable, fi nds study BY SARAH DOBSON DESPITE the considerable pub- licity around bullying — particu- larly at schools — the message may not be getting through when it comes to people entering the workforce, judging by a study. Young women preparing for the business world tend to see teasing, isolation and other rela- tionship-oriented actions as being more acceptable behaviours in the workplace compared to their male counterparts, found Work- place Bullying: The Perceptions of Canadian University Students from Brock University in Saint

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