Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER January 25, 2016 22 INSIGHT DRIVE-THRU CONFLICT WESTLAND, MICH. — A Tim Hortons drive-thru became a scene of confl ict recently, according to Local 4 News. A video shot from inside shows a customer at the take-out window reportedly asking a female employee to throw out his old cup of coff ee, but she refuses. So the man in the car decides he doesn't want the new cup of coff ee and starts to drive off . A male em- ployee then grabs the hot coff ee and throws it at the customer's vehicle. e customer gets out of his car and the two men end up throwing things at each other. e customer's attorney, Majeg Moughni, wanted the employee charged with feloni- ous assault. "He threw hot coff ee, it struck him in the face," he said. "My client was called an Arab, that he should go back to the Middle East." Tim Hortons said it was aware of the incident and the franchisee had taken appropriate steps: "Guest safety is of paramount concern to Tim Hortons." HARD TO KNOW IF KANYE WAS ANNOYED ILLINOIS — Internal training newsletters can be dull affairs but Goodwill apparently took it a bit too far recently when it used an image of Kanye West in its communications. The organization sent out a newsletter to supervisors warning them against looking like the rapper when dealing with employees so they don't look unapproachable, according to the Daily Mail. e newsletter featured the headline: "Do you suff er from Resting Kanye Face?" and showed fi ve headshots of West with the same straight face and descriptions underneath such as "happy," "sad" and "excited." e letter then talked about the various ways senior staff can appear more approachable, such as smiling, keeping their heads up and making eye contact. Goodwill subsequently apologized for using the celebrity's image: "It was unacceptable and Goodwill takes full responsibility for this action and meant no disrespect to Kanye." LAPSE LEADS TO LAYOFF NISKAYUNA, N.Y. — A Wal- Mart worker was fi red recently after he apparently took too long to return cash he found in the store's parking lot, according to the Times Union. Michael Walsh, a maintenance worker for 18 years, found a small stack of bills adding up to $350, with no envelope or identifi cation, and stuff ed them in his pocket. Going back inside, he heard a woman yelling, upset she lost her money. "I got ner- vous," said Walsh. "I kind of froze and didn't want any trouble." e worker gave the manager the cash and heard nothing more, but two days later, a manager showed him a surveillance tape confi rming the 30-minute time lapse between Walsh fi nding the money and re- turning it. He was fi red for gross misconduct. " ey didn't let me explain and said they knew what happened. ey told me how it happened in a way they wanted it to go," said Walsh. " e only thing I did wrong was hesitate… I didn't steal anything. ey didn't give me any warning. ey just fi red me." Wal-Mart said it had no comment. GLITTER GOES TOO FAR AKRON, OHIO — Whether looking to be festive or to ex- press her anger, a county gov- ernment clerk in Ohio was fi ned $1,000 and given a nine-month suspended sentence after trash- ing her former supervisor's offi ce cubicle. Samantha Lockhart, 25, was found guilty of vandalism, a fifth-degree felony, after she dumped glitter, toilet paper, silly string and an unknown powder on the employee's desk, according to Reuters. is damaged a com- puter and other equipment, said James Pollack, a spokesperson for the Summit County prosecutor's offi ce, who said Lockhart was in the process of leaving her job. While the woman's motives were unclear, she was sentenced to 50 hours of community service and ordered to write a letter of apology for her actions. W EIRD ORKPLACE THE Vol. 29 No. 1 – January 25, 2016 PUBLISHED BY Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ©Copyright 2015 by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. CANADIAN HR REPORTER is published 21 times a year. Publications Mail – Agreement # 40065782 Registration # 9496 – ISSN 0838-228X Director, Carswell Media: Karen Lorimer - (416) 649-9411 karen.lorimer@thomsonreuters.com Publisher: (on leave) John Hobel - (416) 298-5197 john.hobel@thomsonreuters.com EDITORIAL Acting Publisher/Editor in Chief: Todd Humber - (416) 298-5196 todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com Editor/Supervisor: Sarah Dobson - (416) 649-7896 sarah.dobson@thomsonreuters.com Senior Editor: Liz Bernier - (416) 649-7837 liz.bernier@thomsonreuters.com Employment Law Editor: Jeffrey R. 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Address changes and returns: Send changes and undeliverable Canadian addresses to: SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Canadian HR Reporter One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 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 todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com CHRR reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. Todd Humber Editor's Notes NOT SO SHIP-SHAPE OTTAWA — A sailor whose weight rose to 301 pounds while in the Cana- dian navy is receiving a disability award after arguing his health problems were partly due to unhealthy food in the military, according to the Ottawa Citizen. e 47-year-old was able to prove to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board that his chronic high blood pressure was linked to his service. Originally 160 pounds and fi t in 1986, the man was obese by 2005. Along with developing an alcohol problem, he was not used to the diet on ships. " ere was only fresh food for the fi rst few weeks of a sail and the rest of the time food came out of a can and was cooked in a deep fryer or on a grill in cooking oil," the ruling noted. " e diet was high in sodium, salt and fat." e sailor also suff ered injuries that limited his ability to exercise, but has lost close to 70 pounds since leaving the military. Credit: kevin brine/Shutterstock A sailor whose weight rose to 301 pounds while in the Cana- dian navy is receiving a disability award after arguing his health problems Ottawa . e 47-year-old was able to prove to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board that his chronic high blood pressure was linked to his service. Originally 160 pounds and fi t in 1986, the man was obese by 2005. Along with developing an alcohol problem, he was not used to the diet on ships. " ere was only fresh food for the fi rst few weeks of a sail and the rest of the time food came out of a can and was cooked in a deep fryer or on a grill in cooking oil," the ruling noted. " e diet was high in sodium, salt and fat." e sailor also suff ered injuries that limited his ability to exercise, but has lost close to 70 pounds since leaving the military. Credit: kevin brine/Shutterstock The Uber-ization of your workforce T here's something so easy and appealing about Uber. You download the app, set up an account and instantly get a ride anywhere you want at the touch of a but- ton. Plus there's no fi ddling for change or waiting for the driver to swipe your credit card at the end of the trip — you just get out and go. Uber is the poster child for the so-called sharing economy, along with services such as Airbnb which lets you easily rent a pri- vate residence while on vacation. To say those two companies have been disruptive to the taxi and ho- tel industries respectively would be a massive understatement. But these fi rms are giving us a glimpse into what the working world will look like in the com- ing decades. For the past couple of years, I've been a judge at the Focus 2040 competition where post-secondary students from across Canada outline their vi- sion of what the working world will look like in 25 years. Every year, at least a couple of entries outline a vision that shows fewer and fewer full-time employees on the payroll. Instead, there will be free agents available to be hired by the task to do your bidding. Need a marketing cam- paign? Peruse the database for a highly rated, yet aff ordable, pro- fessional to build it for you. Need a press release written? Don't call the employee commu- nications department — it won't exist. Instead, put out an RFP to a talented pool of freelance journalists. ese are all things you can do now — and many fi rms are already on this bandwagon. But it's set to explode and, from an HR stand- point, it's a mind-boggling change fraught with pros and cons. e pros are relatively straight- forward — you have access to a pool of trained candidates, you can pick how much you want to spend. And if you're not happy with the worker, there are no per- formance management issues to deal with, no PIPs, no severance packages. Plus you have an end- less supply of fresh perspectives — for better or worse. But the cons are pretty compli- cated. First and foremost is stabil- ity — institutional knowledge is a diffi cult thing to put a price tag on. In a free-agent era, you won't build much of it. at increases the like- lihood mistakes will be repeated because there's nobody around to learn from past lessons. ere's also little stability and no knowledge management. In the world of publishing, it's easy to have a workforce that is largely freelance. But nearly all the news stories written in the pages of this publication are penned by staff writers. ere's a reason for that — the editors feel a real ownership for Canadian HR Reporter and the content that goes in it. ey build up knowledge over the years that helps them determine what sto- ries interest readers and what an- gles to take. (Every new journalist who works here inevitably pitches a story from the employee's view- point, not the employer's.) And then there's succession planning. How do you identify high performers and groom them for leadership positions? e tal- ent pipeline could quickly run dry if the pool of talent exists primar- ily outside your walls. ere is also unpredictability around costs. Just ask Uber cus- tomers on New Year's Eve how much they paid for a ride — a woman in Montreal paid more than $600 for a cab ride that would normally cost $100, thanks to surge pricing when demand soars. One of the key reasons this labour model is so attractive to employers is because it can cir- cumnavigate employment stan- dards legislation. But as most HR professionals know, calling a worker an independent contrac- tor doesn't make her one. At a re- cent symposium, Doug MacLeod, principal of MacLeod Law Firm in Toronto, pointed out some of the factors a court will consider when determining if a worker is truly independent. This includes the intent of the parties, but even that can be meaningless. Courts will look beyond that to see who truly has control — does the employer su- pervise the worker? Does it direct her on what to do? Are there per- formance reviews? Who provides the tools for the job? True independent contractors have a chance of profi t and loss, and the work can't really be inte- gral to the business. at may be one of the reasons Uber calls itself a technology company and not a taxi service. e sharing economy is here to stay — Uber-like models will spread to other industries. Ear- lier this month, a headline said Canada's big banks faced a similar threat as technology makes bank- ing easier and easier. is new way of working will have a tremendous impact on how organizations handle human re- sources. Senior editor Liz Bernier recently attended the Canadian Sharing Economy Symposium in Toronto. Look for her report in the Feb. 8 issue of Canadian HR Reporter.

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