Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER March 21, 2016 18 INSIGHT TEE TIMES TAKE A TOLL CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA — Be- ing unemployed is tough, no doubt, but some Australians may be a little too fussy when it comes to fi nding work. e government there plans to tighten rules around who quali- fi es for unemployment benefi ts, according to the Associated Press, to encourage people to get back to work. If someone refuses a job off er without a good excuse, the penalty is eight weeks without a welfare check. But three-quarters of un- employed Australians who did just that managed to keep their checks coming. Some of the reasons given? One man was not prepared to work Sundays because it interfered with his golf time. Another wanted to "follow his dream of becoming an actor" while another complained car washing was "too diffi cult." CHILD LEFT HANGING SURREY, B.C. — Yet another viral video has exposed an employee with performance issues. The footage was taken by a mother unhappy about how her child was being treated at a climbing gym. Her daughter was apparently stuck on a wall and crying, while a nearby worker was busy texting, according to the CBC. "My daughter is crying up there and she is ON HER PHONE TEXTING!!!" the mother wrote on Facebook. Yasen Nikolov, Funtopia Surrey's general manager, said the employee had been fi red. "Obviously, that's not acceptable. It shouldn't have happened at all," he said. " is particular employee has broken at least three internal rules, starting with no phones outside of the employees' room." However, some questioned why the mother had not gone to her daughter's aid instead of recording the incident. CONFLICT IN THE CUBICLES OTTAWA — Offi ces can make for strange bedfellows but one Ot- tawa bureaucrat had had enough when she fi led a grievance against her work colleague. Line Emond, a data quality manager at the Pa- role Board of Canada, claimed the behaviour of her co-worker made her ill, according to the Canadian Press. She said the man was loud, fl atulent and he swore, that he ut- tered odd noises and washed his bare feet with vinegar. "All the witnesses described him as being physically imposing and behav- ing strangely, inappropriately and abusively in the workplace," said arbitrator Linda Gobeil. e man arrived in Emond's offi ce in 2009 and two years later, she took sick leave followed by disability leave until 2013. In the end, the Pub- lic Service Labour Relations and Employment Board granted the woman the right to work in a dif- ferent building and ordered that she be reimbursed for salary and benefi ts lost during her time on long-term disability. SMELLY LANDSCAPERS SALEM, ORE. — While robots may be a threat to many jobs, when it comes to goats, not so much. At least that's what a park in Salem, Ore., found out recently when it brought in 75 goats to eat invasive plants such as Armenian blackberry and English ivy. After six weeks, the program ended, ac- cording to Reuters, as the animals ate indiscriminately — including native fl ora and maple and hazel- nut trees — and were said to have "a barnyard aroma." e goats also cost nearly fi ve times as much as human landscapers, adding up to $20,179 plus $4,203 for drinking water and a workers' toilet, along with $2,560 for monitoring — compared to $4,245 for a normal parks maintenance man backed by a prison inmate work crew. How- ever, the owner of Yoder Goat Rentals said the public response was very favourable and Keith Keever, the city's parks superinten- dent, said the goats may be used in the future for other landscaping projects, such as steep hills. W EIRD ORKPLACE THE Vol. 29 No. 5 – March 21, 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 SUITED FOR DOUBLE STANDARD COQUITLAM, B.C. — Politicians can all start to look the same after awhile, but one Canadian mayor took that stereotype to the extreme recently when he wore the same suit for more than a year — and nobody noticed. Richard Stewart, mayor of Coquitlam, B.C., wore a "plain, off -the-rack, boring, dark blue suit" to all public events and council meetings for 15 months in a row, according to the CBC. His motivation? To highlight the double standards faced by women in politics. "It became evident to me that nobody was going to notice, that this was not simply something that we remark upon when it comes to male politicians." Stewart's staff , colleagues, constituents and even his family failed to notice the fashion fail. "I've got daughters and when I see the inadvertent barriers that society puts in place about women and their career advancement, barriers that don't exist for men, I kind of want to draw attention to them," said Stewart, adding former colleagues in the B.C. legislature have told him about remarks they've received. " ey've gotten angry emails from constituents saying, ' at suit… is gaudy or inappropriate' or 'You wear that too much, why don't you wear something else?' — comments that I've never, ever heard as a man." Credit: Viktorija Reuta (Shutterstock) Politicians can all start to look the same after awhile, but one Canadian mayor took that stereotype to the extreme recently when he wore the same suit for more than a year — and nobody noticed. Richard Stewart, mayor of Coquitlam, B.C., wore a "plain, off -the-rack, boring, dark blue suit" to all public events and council meetings for 15 months in a row, according to the CBC. His motivation? To highlight the double standards faced by women in politics. "It became evident to me that nobody was going to notice, that this was not simply something that we remark upon when it comes to male politicians." Stewart's staff , colleagues, constituents and even his family failed to notice the fashion fail. "I've got daughters and when I see the inadvertent barriers that society puts in place about women and their career advancement, barriers that don't exist for men, I kind of want to draw attention to them," said Stewart, adding former colleagues in the B.C. legislature have told him about remarks they've received. " ey've gotten angry emails from constituents saying, ' at suit… is gaudy or inappropriate' or 'You wear that too much, why don't you wear We don't need new sick leaves. Period I f you're not feeling well, take a sick day. It's really that simple. But, as any HR professional knows, life is never simple when it comes to people and the working world. So it doesn't actually work that way. Because a minority of people tend to abuse any policy, employ- ers have generally had to put a cap on the number of paid sick days off ered — and even implement limitations on unpaid sick days to ensure they are properly staff ed on any given day. And because some unenlight- ened micromanagers think taking a sick day is a cardinal sin, some employees feel the need to trudge in no matter how high their tem- perature is, how contagious they are or just how awful they are feel- ing when it comes time to punch in. Or to overexplain when they physically can't make it out the door in the morning. Other staff play the hero card while contaminating every corner of the offi ce. ey think they get bonus points for showing up sick, despite the fact they just took half the offi ce down with their self- styled herculean eff ort. All this navel-gazing over sick leave — whether you should take it, whether managers should question every absence, whether a doctor's note is needed — has made a day off work needlessly complicated. at's part of the reason we see headlines like this one on Cana- dian HR Reporter's website: "U.K. company's plans for 'period poli- cy' ignites discussion about men- strual leave." Coexist, a British-based com- munity hub, is developing a pe- riod policy. It is exactly what you think it is — a special leave allow- ing women to tkae time off during menstruation. Here's something I didn't know until today —Japan enacted menstrual leave in 1947. Taiwanese female workers can also have a day off per month when "having diffi culties" work- ing during menstruation. I'm not writing this to be funny. And I'm not making light of pe- riod pain — I know it's a very real thing, and a dangerous topic for a guy to opine on. But I'm pleading for it not to be added to the list of available leaves. Not because it's not important, not because I think women need to show up at work while having severe cramps — but because that is precisely what sick days are meant to address. And the story posted on our website touched on this. Lisa Kay, a Toronto-based HR specialist, told the Canadian Press that men- struation leave has the potential to raise positive and negative issues in the workplace. For one, it's just an awkward conversation to have with your manager — especially if he's a man, she said. Plus, there are so many other ailments — migraines and arthri- tis, to name two, that are just as debilitating and could also require special leave. I have asthma. It sucks sometimes and I have taken sick days because of it. But I don't need asthma leave. For the sake of employers, and the ease of HR technology sys- tems everywhere, we don't need to be adding new types of leave that can easily be covered by ex- isting sick days. Period pain is a justifi able rea- son to take a regular sick day. It doesn't need its own status. e same goes for mental health days — those are sick days too. A sick day should be simply de- fi ned: "A day off for an employee who is unable to work because of an ailment." Period. (No pun intended.) A cold. A migraine. The flu. Anything short of a bad hair day can all be lumped under a sick day. We don't need to get complicated about it. I believe employers generally shouldn't ask why a worker is off — a simple "I'm sick" should suf- fi ce. I don't want to engage my em- ployees about whether it's a cold, the fl u, a mental health situation or menstrual cramps. It doesn't matter why, it just matters that they take time and come back 100 per cent. Does it mean we need more sick days? Perhaps. I'd rather have that debate than to spend time looking at individual ailments and determining whether or not they are worthy of a special leave designation. Employees who abuse sick days can still be rooted out and dealt with — but let's keep in mind that they're the minority. Most people don't max out their sick leave — so let's keep things simple. HR is already complicated enough. A cold. A migraine. The fl u. Anything short of a bad hair day can all be lumped under a sick day.

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