Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER September 4, 2017 16 NEWS Canada's payroll professionals ensure that $928 billion in annual wages and benefi ts are paid to employees. With 50% of Canadians living pay cheque to pay cheque it is critical that employees are paid accurately and on time. Take control of your fi nancial future and "Pay Yourself First" by automatically saving at least 10% of your earnings through payroll deductions. Talk to your payroll professional today! PAYROLL PROFESSIONALS – KEEPING CANADA PAID.™ NATIONAL PAYROLL WEEK SEPTEMBER 11-15, 2017 PAYROLL.CA • #NPW2017 reputation of being on the cusp of new technology. But a campaign like this, and our use of it, hope- fully drives that home." Potential downsides Recruiter Angela Bortolussi has used Snapchat, usually to pro- mote a client at a career fair us- ing short videos. And while that did provide an inside look at the team and their opportunities, compared to images on a website, she has her doubts about the tool. "If someone was really focused maybe on campus recruiting, it would make sense for them, going to career fairs and things like that, because sometimes these career fairs have different snap filters that entice people to use Snapchat, but unless you're at an event… it doesn't make sense," said Bor- tolussi, a partner at recruiting ser- vices company Recruiting Social in Los Angeles. While there has been a lot of hype around the tool, there are definite challenges, she said. For one, it means employers and re- cruiters have to publicize it on another platform, and then try to get people to switch over to the Snapchat application. "Most of the time, your ap- plicant is on their mobile phone looking for jobs or they're brows- ing through on their laptop… so pulling them from another plat- form was a little bit difficult. And you could kind of track in some ways but you can't really track to see what amount of users is going to check out your Snapchat unless you're looking at individual users by scrolling and looking at all the people viewing your stories. It's really difficult to track the ROI (re- turn on investment) in Snapchat when it comes to recruitment." It's also challenging when peo- ple use different user names for different platforms, and it's not easy to identify people by their user names on Snapchat, said Bortolussi. With Instagram, on the other hand, it's easier to identify people and they post both pictures and videos at the same time, so en- gagement is better. Instagram also allows for hashtags, which makes for easier tracking, she said. "I know recruiters last year were really on the bandwagon of testing (Snapchat) out and work- ing with it but, just like any tool, if you're not really repetitive with it, it goes at the bottom and most just didn't see the ROI in using it. It might work for other busi- nesses to push out content and get people engaged but from a re- cruitment standpoint, it doesn't seem like it worked very well for most of us." "When it comes to using these tools, there's a lot of trial and error — that's the beauty of it." Trial and error SNAPCHAT < pg. 2 In most cases, an employer cannot monitor an employee in secret, unless it is conducting an investigation, said Kassaris. "Generally speaking, you're not supposed to be doing things in secret behind the backs of your employees. ey are supposed to have notice of what you are moni- toring and for what purposes." On the other hand, if an em- ployee decides to revoke consent, that could result in termination. "(Employers) could say that it's a term of their employment that they need to perform, under- standing that the tracking is in place and will apply, that there's no opt-out, per se," she said. "'If they are just saying, 'No, I don't want to be tracked,' I do think that would be insubordi- nation and the employer would probably be justified in terminat- ing the employment." If a worker feels tracking or monitor is too onerous, he may refuse to be watched. An employ- ee may petition the privacy com- missioner that "tracking went too far and they were right to refuse to be tracked," or she could imple- ment a civil claim after the fact for an unjust firing, said Kassaris. "It would be difficult, however, for them to assert that claim if the farms or other business that might have tracking can establish that this was necessary for legitimate business purposes, implemented properly in accordance with pri- vacy laws," she said. Employers are also able to use tracking data for discipline, but only in certain instances, said Kassaris. "You can only do that if it's one of the articulated purposes to em- ployees: ey have to be warned, you can't just monitor them and say it's for their safety or for effi- ciency, and then fire them if you catch them doing something im- proper on video," she said. "If you tell them in advance that 'We're monitoring the workplace for the following reasons — in- cluding potential discipline if you do something improper in your employment' — then there is some case law out of the privacy commissioner's office that suggest that can be reasonable." Lack of awareness Many employers are not fully cognizant of the many issues sur- rounding privacy, said Kassaris. "ere is a lack of education about the ins and outs of privacy laws; people get very nervous when they hear they are being tracked and they don't under- stand that it can be permissible in many cases and, as a result, they feel violated." But for most employees, the story is different, she said. "e workforce is sophisticated enough to understand that tech- nology is at the point where track- ing is possible, but that's different than believing they are doing it." For new companies, privacy considerations should not be put on the back burner, said Parsons. "It's really valuable for a new employer, as part of their startup budget, to consider sitting down with an employment lawyer or se- nior HR personnel, and say, 'Can you tell me, from an employment perspective, what are all the pieces here, including privacy that need to be in place?'" he said. "It does highlight the value of having HR personnel at the office or at least somebody senior who could deal with that, or at least raise the organization's conscious- ness to be aware of it." Worker monitoring limited PRIVACY < pg. 10 "ere is a lack of education about the ins and outs of privacy laws."

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