Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER April 3, 2017 10 NEWS ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY! Visit carswell.com or call 1.800.387.5164 for a 30-day no-risk evaluation THE MOST COMPLETE DIRECTORY OF ONTARIO LAWYERS, LAW FIRMS, JUDGES AND COURTS Ontario Lawyer's Phone Book is your best connection to legal services in Ontario with more than 1,400 pages of essential legal references. You can depend on the accuracy of this trusted directory that includes the most up-to-date names, phone numbers, mailing addresses and emails so you don't have to search anywhere else. 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"If you're hiring temporary foreign workers who are from the six banned countries, they're not going to be able to get new visas to the United States." While the travel ban will not aff ect dual citizens travelling with Canadian passports, it will be "dis- cretionary" when it comes to per- manent residents born in one of the six banned countries, mean- ing they could still be denied entry by U.S. customs, she said. Advice for HR With a travel ban in place, Cana- dian HR departments may face practical travel diffi culties when sending employees across the border to attend conferences or meet with clients, according to Tomasz Swiecki, assistant pro- fessor at the University of British Columbia's Vancouver School of Economics. "In the context of the next few weeks, if you are a Canadian company which has cross-border travel involved for some existing employees, this is defi nitely going to cause some headaches for you," he said. HR professionals should imme- diately pore over the legislation for potential waivers or exemp- tions that could apply to their company, and keep tabs on how the ruling is interpreted by U.S. border officials going forward, said Swiecki. HR needs to examine who is travelling, and for what reason, shortlisting any employee who could potentially be aff ected — especially anyone from the six banned countries, said Lessard. " ey're not going to be able to get new visas to enter the United States, so you have to change your business model for these persons," she said. "If they are permanent residents, then it's discretionary, but you have to look at the risk for you." The repercussions of tight- ening U.S. border policies may prove tricky for HR, all the way back to the recruitment stage, said Lessard. "It's getting complex," she said. "Up to where will you go? Will you discriminate at hire when the rule is discretion and you don't know if they'll be able to go to the States or not? Internally, are you going to promote one person more than the other if (their role) deals with travelling and you have no clue whether or not they will be able to travel?" "If your business model entails necessary U.S. work, how are you going to recruit? How are you go- ing to train your recruiters? Will that constitute discrimination or not?" For now, HR professionals will be forced to take this executive or- der in stride, said Lessard. "If you have contracts upcom- ing in the pipeline, and your game plan was to rely on that team, if there's a chance or a risk that they won't be able to travel, you have to react immediately," she said. "We have to see how this order will be applied… but even if they would invalidate that second ban, the attitude at borders is already changed." Custom offi cials are asking tons of questions to people travelling, she said, "and it extends to coun- tries that are not covered by the ban. It extends to Canadian citi- zens who have travelled to these countries. ey're being asked a lot more questions than they have in the past." Border offi cials have gone as far as searching electronic de- vices, she said. HR should get up to speed and brief their staff on individual privacy rights if faced with this scenario. Current regulations do not al- low border patrols to request passwords, though they are still able to refuse people entry to the country, said Lessard. And while citizens who are pre- inspected at the border are always allowed to withdraw their appli- cation to enter the country, future black-listing may occur, she said. Canada holds appeal For skilled immigrants eyeing North America, Canada may take a leading role as U.S. pros- pects dim and a new fast-track visa program is unveiled by the Canadian government in June. It is expected to clear high-skilled workers for entry within two weeks, compared to a typical wait of six months to one year. "Longer-term implications may be more signifi cant, in particular to the extent that this ban signifi es a broader policy shift in the U.S.," said Swiecki. "Canada suddenly becomes much more attractive. is is go- ing beyond this 90-day travel ban — if it is actually lifted — to the extent that you interpret it as to how the administration and the policy at the moment seems to work… you might not be feeling so welcome anymore (in the U.S.)." "You might potentially see some uptake in applications to Canada. erefore, for Canadian employers, it might suddenly be an opportunity to scoop up good talent, which otherwise could choose to go south of the border." Talented people across the world are looking at the U.S. dif- ferently — more negatively — and looking more positively at Cana- da, said Lessard. "Even U.S. companies are start- ing to look at Canada… question- ing whether or not they should also open branches or subsidiar- ies in Canada, because it's going to be easier to have their interna- tional talent enter Canada than the States." Repercussions of tighter borders may prove tricky TRAVEL BAN < pg. 1 Diversity matters Despite Trump's new travel ban, 96 per cent of 202 U.S. HR professionals surveyed in February and March still believe cultivating diversity in the workplace is essential for driving innovation, according to the North California Human Resources Association in San Francisco. It's generally accepted that companies benefi t from cultivating diverse workforces, said CEO Greg Morton. "It is overwhelming," he said of the research. "And these are the people that know. For them to be just so blatantly in the corner that diversity is critical here, it should make us stand up and take notice when we start to see trends that look like they're not going to support that." Still, the tightening of borders doesn't mean diversity will be impossible to achieve, said Morton. U.S. companies are still able to pluck talented recruits from highly skilled pockets of the country. "Diversity is everywhere," he said. "Whether that's male versus female, old versus young, pulling talent from different industries than you typically would... the premise is still there that diversity allows for different perspectives and fresh ideas. It doesn't always have to be a geographically bound diversity." And organizations harnessing that talent will be better- equipped to innovate, said Morton. "Whether it's Canada or another country, anywhere where the policies and practices are in place that are more supportive of diversity, over time, they're going to have an advantage." Credit: Christinne Muschi (Reuters) A man who claimed to be from Sudan throws his family's suitcases towards the border as he is detained by a U.S. border patrol officer after his family crossed the U.S.-Canada border into Hemmingford, Que., from Champlain, N.Y., on Feb. 17.

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