Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER May 29, 2017 16 NEWS LOOKING FOR A SUPPLIER OR VENDOR? Visit hrreporter.com/hr-vendors-guide But companies on traditional plans may not see savings as quickly, said Naranjo. "Their savings might take a bit more time to materialize be- cause insurers will wait to see the emerging claim experience before adjusting their pricing," he said. "I'm not sure that plan sponsors will really see meaningful premi- um reductions in the short term." Even though pricing can be a bit obscure, logic dictates that as claims decrease, premiums should also go down over time, said Naranjo. "Overall, this is good news for employers and their plans. I don't see a downside arising from that at all for employers," he said. "It's universal, it's not income-test- ed, there's no co-payments and there's no deductibles… they've made it very clean and simple." Parents will likely feel the sav- ings more than employers, he said. "Parents will feel it because most plans use co-payments and deductibles. ey resort to these cost-sharing mechanisms so that the employees have some skin in the game." On a typical plan, an employee is only reimbursed for a percent- age of her claim, but OHIP+ will take care of 100 per cent of costs, saving employees 10 to 20 per cent per claim. Yet because of the narrow focus of the new pharmacare coverage, employees will be unable to with- draw their children from their health benefi ts packages. "No one will do that because you've got a number of other coverages that you still want your children to be covered with," said Naranjo, noting dental and vision care as examples. "You can't really take them out." Advice for HR Employers that provide prescrip- tion drug benefits coverage to eligible dependants will need to review their plans to determine whether any changes are neces- sary following the implementa- tion of OHIP+, said Monkman. Companies should also confi rm whether their plan will provide — or continue to provide — any supplementary coverage to the government plan. "In many cases, an employer would have a hard time stepping away from continuing to provide that," she said. Some internal policy revisions will be required as a result of the proposed legislation, said Sulli- van. National companies with an Ontario workforce will need to al- ter corporate policies accordingly. "Every single plan in Ontario is going to immediately remove coverage for people under the age of 25 because the government will be fi rst payer," he said. Employers should also be aware that the Ontario Drug Benefit doesn't cover all products on the market, such as birth control pills, said Sullivan. Decisions on cover- ing excluded drugs will need to be made by individual organizations. "It's worth people realizing that this just isn't some sort of magic bullet that's going to absorb every single piece." Further, companies with em- ployees under age 25 will need to communicate that they should be submitting prescription drugs to OHIP+ rather than the corporate plan, said Naranjo. More workplace changes coming Another major document that could affect employers remains in the queue — for now. The Ontario government's long-awaited Changing Workplaces Review is expected to alter provincial labour laws, but was not yet released as of press time. In July 2016, more than 200 options for reform were submitted to Labour Minister Kevin Flynn, ranging from vulnerable workers to precarious jobs. The review is expected to amend both the Labour Relations Act and Employment Standards Act. "We know that there's going to be the Changing Workplaces Review in Ontario, so a lot of the workplace elements we're just in stasis on," said Natasha Monkman, pension and benefi ts lawyer at Hicks Morley's Toronto offi ce. Other budget announcements of note to employers include: • an exploration of improvements to apprenticeship programs • website development providing career and labour market information. • the delaying of repayment of OSAP (Ontario Student Assistance Program) loans for students until they begin earning more than $35,000 per year • reaffi rmation of the $190-million investment in the Career Kick-Start Strategy aimed at post-secondary students seeking work-related experience. DRUG PLAN < pg. 3 Government to be fi rst payer of government to collaborate and harmonize labour and workplace legislation and regulation. "Because this is new and be- cause not all provinces have legis- lated this yet or have regulations around it yet, there's a great op- portunity for provincial govern- ments to get together and, to the extent they can, harmonize or co-ordinate their eff orts and their regulations," said MacGillivray. Testing for impairment One big concern is the research that needs to be done on im- pairment-testing technologies, and acceptable practices when it comes to workers suspected of be- ing high. Cognitive impairments can last for more than 24 hours, and up to 20 days for chronic marijuana use, said MacGillivray. " ere are number of diff erenc- es with marijuana, largely around how it interacts with the system and how it gets expelled from your system," he said. " ere is no clear relationship between the level measured in a person's system and their level of impairment, so that's a problem." Until there is clear evidence and a complete understanding of what level of impairment is deemed "safe," a zero-tolerance policy is the only safe choice, he said. "We think it's very appropri- ate to have random testing where (the) criteria are being met. In other instances, there would be mandatory testing for everybody before they go to a safety-sensitive workplace... and then you might have some reasonable frequency for retesting — maybe once a year or perhaps more frequently. And then you could also have post-in- cident testing, which we do now." But random testing is not al- ways necessary, according to Ed Secondiak, president of ECS Safe- ty Services in Brooks, Alta. "If you have a good policy and if you really promote the educa- tion of employees and if you have good, trained supervisors, your normal testing for post-accident or reasonable cause is suffi cient to maintain safety." Instead, it's best to focus on how drugs and alcohol can aff ect performance and put others at risk, to get people to start making the right decisions, he said. "If you take a disciplinary ap- proach solely, you're doomed." While there is good testing for alcohol, the same is not true for marijuana, according to Julie Menten, a lawyer at Roper Greyell in Vancouver. "Policies will need to change as we learn more," she said. "So that's what a lot of employers are doing to try and minimize risk, is being more vigilant in their ob- servations of people when there are near misses or if there are rea- sonable suspicions that someone is using, they immediately send them for testing." Usually, the issue comes to light when a person goes from being a recreational user to having a prob- lem, said Menten. at can mean higher rates of absenteeism, tardi- ness or declining performance. Accommodation issues Marijuana also raises complex accommodation issues. e em- ployer, said omas, is saying, "I don't know what I can and can't do and I don't know what level of ac- commodation I have to off er… and if I don't follow those rules, what's going to happen to me, what's go- ing to happen to my business?" he said. "It's not really spelled out anywhere — there's no policy, there's no procedures, there's no guidance for employers." In B.C., there is quite robust ju- risprudence on the duty to inquire from a human rights perspective, so if an employer has a reasonable basis to suspect the conduct it's about to discipline or terminate for could be infl uenced by drugs, alcohol or a mental health prob- lem, and it doesn't ask about it, that can be considered discrimi- natory, said Menten. "It puts employers in a bit of a tough spot because they don't usually have the skills to say, 'So, what's going on in your life? Is there something happening?' So they'll put these things in their disciplinary letters: 'Please re- member we have an EAP program if you need to access it.'" ere will be mistakes along the way, with employers being "either a little too aggressive on getting tested in thinking you have rea- sonable grounds, and maybe peo- ple using a little too much. ere'll be a period where there's going to be some blips but then… people will get back to normal routines," she said. Employers 'in tough spot' MARIJUANA < pg. 1 Recommendations Of the 80 recommendations made by the federal Task Force on Cannabis Legalization and Regulation in December, three concerned the workplace: • Facilitate and monitor ongoing research on cannabis and impairment, considering implications for occupational health and safety policies. • Work with existing federal, provincial and territorial bodies to better understand potential occupational health and safety issues related to cannabis impairment. • Work with provinces, territories, employers and labour representatives to facilitate the development of workplace impairment policies. But the Surrey Board of Trade in British Columbia also wants the federal government to identify a regulatory authority that employers and employees can rely on for consistent information, updated regulations, and standardized forms and templates that are legally vetted to be sound. The group also said the regulatory authority should take the lead on devising: • a workable defi nition of impairment • a universally applicable checklist that non-medically trained supervisors or managers can use to determine impairment • a list of the types of medical practitioners who are qualifi ed to be signatories on such standardized medical forms. The board also wants a standardized medical marijuana or cannabinoid form that includes details on the frequency of usage, the anticipated impairment of the employee, the anticipated duration of usage, and recommendations of accommodation that do not limit employer determinations, but provide guidance and awareness of the disability in question.

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