Canadian HR Reporter is the national journal of human resource management. It features the latest workplace news, HR best practices, employment law commentary and tools and tips for employers to get the most out of their workforce.
Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/686418
PM40065782 RO9496 June 13, 2016 INSIDE READERS' CHOICE AWARDS You voted, and the results are in — nd out which vendors and suppliers are tops for Canadian HR Reporter readers Dealing with drugs Roundtable looks at the rising costs of health plans page 6 Bias on the brain The mechanics behind neuromanagement page 30 Social media tips A look back at relevant cases to help design policy page 33 page 13 Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould arrives at Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 17 to announce legislation to protect transgender people from discrimination and hate crimes. The legislation could affect employers when it comes to accommodation and discrimination issues. Credit: Chris Wattie (Reuters) Ottawa proposes legislation protecting trans people Education, understanding needed from employers: Experts BY LIZ BERNIER THE federal government has put forward legislation protecting transgender people in Canada — legislation that may become law with "relative ease" as the bill, tabled by the governing Liberals, is likely to garner support among the NDP and Green parties, and even a handful of Conservatives, according to reports. e bill adds "gender identity" and "gender expression" to the prohibited grounds of discrimina- tion under the Canadian Human Rights Act, and also amends the criminal code to include gender identity and expression under hate crimes provisions. e implications for the work- place are obvious when it comes to issues such as discrimination and accommodation. And for activists like Michael Bach, the legislation is more than welcome. "I'm very pleased to see what looks to be relatively cross-board support for the inclusion of gen- der identity and expression in the Canadian Human Rights Act, and in fact they took it one step further to amend the criminal code to in- clude gender identity and gender expression as part of hate speech," LANGUAGE > pg. 10 Sexual harassment still challenging for employers New legislation in Ontario will lead to harsher penalties BY SARAH DOBSON THE NAMES of several big em- ployers have been in the news of late, and not for good reason. CBC was back in the spotlight after one of the women involved in the Jian Ghomeshi trial made serious al- legations about her treatment by the broadcaster, while WestJet faced a sexual assault lawsuit from an ex-fl ight attendant and CIBC saw a former associate alleging sexual assault and harassment in the workplace. Yet legislation meant to com- bat sexual harassment has been in place for years. Countrywide, it's hard to fi nd anyone who doesn't know this kind of behaviour is wrong and must be dealt with. So why do these cases keep crop- ping up? Culture change needed Culture is one factor, according to Daniel Pugen, a partner at Torkin Manes in Toronto. CONSEQUENCES > pg. 12 Focus on big data sees data scientists in demand Employers encouraged to train existing employees BY LIZ FOSTER FOR YEARS, research fi rms such as Gartner, McKinsey and Accen- ture have predicted a shortage of data scientists in the near future — ranging from 100,000 to 190,000 in the United States. What's behind the scarcity? Big data continues to evolve and, as a result, big data professionals con- tinue to specialize. is has created an increased demand, according to Stan Ma- twin, director of the Institute for Big Data Analytics in Halifax, add- ing there could be a shortfall of as much as 60 per cent by 2018 in the U.S. and Canada's shortages will be about 10 per cent of those in the U.S. To fi ll the void, organizations are turning to existing employees. Analysts, statisticians and econo- mists are particularly well-suited to working with big data, said Matwin. "Employees already inside the enterprise can be trained," he said. "People with degrees in computer science, math and even physics make good data scientists." is is signifi cant, said Matwin, because big data — the acquisition, storage, processing and analysis of large data sets — is increasingly being used by HR professionals to develop a deeper understanding of an organization's operations, em- ployees and customers. Everything from effi ciency to collaboration is being examined through the use of big data, ac- cording to Peter Smit, founder and CEO of Collabogence in Toronto. " ere are multiple uses that are very eff ective," he said. "Diff erent companies use this data for very diff erent things." For example, the same meta- data used to measure collabora- tion within a company could also be used to examine the unauthor- ized access of information within an organization, he said. Or that data could be run through senti- ment analysis to determine how BETTER > pg. 3