Canadian HR Reporter

PM40065782 RO9496 September 18, 2017 INSIDE Riding high Every employee has two minds at work — a rational rider with a pointy stick directing an emotional but heavy-lifting elephant, says one expert Reluctant to leave Canada is a hot spot, and workers aren't keen to relocate pages 3, 12 Staying safe Security concerns are a top barrier for work exibility page 11 70-year milestone Bob Bellamy has worked for just one company all his life page 19 page 8 payroll-reporter.com LEGISLATION PAYROLL NEWS, AND TIPS Google for Jobs set to shake up job search market Tool could level playing fi eld in quest for top talent: Expert BY JOHN DUJAY HR PROFESSIONALS must be- come recruiting marketers if they want to take advantage of a new set of tools from Google, according to experts. Google for Jobs may level the playing fi eld in the quest for tal- ent between large and small com- panies, according to Tess Taylor, CEO of consulting fi rm HR Knows in Binghamton, N.Y. "It is a big disruption to job postings, online job advertising, because it no longer relies on the use of a large job portal for candi- dates to be able to fi nd out about a business or fi nd out about their job postings," she said. "If (small businesses) work hard to create really well-designed job postings, and they focus on the marketing side, they have just as much of a chance of attracting candidates as any other company does." Background Google for Jobs promises to pro- vide "access to Google's machine- learning capabilities to power smarter job searches and recom- mendations within career sites, jobs boards and other job-match- ing sites and apps," according to a post by Nick Zakrasek, product manager at Google. e tool will allow jobseekers to type a job title and location di- rectly into the main Google search engine, which would then display a listing of all the jobs that relate to that search provided by various NEW > pg. 7 Sears provides lessons for HR Better communication, transparency would help: Experts BY SARAH DOBSON STILL not managing to ring up much-needed sales, Sears an- nounced in June it was seeking creditor protection and would be closing 59 stores in Canada and laying off about 2,900 workers at retail and corporate locations. e news was not entirely sur- prising considering the retailer's economic challenges of late, but the chain still faced a backlash when it became apparent depart- ing employees would not be re- ceiving severance payments. Sears also announced it would no longer be making special pay- ments to the defi ned benefi t pen- sion plan, post-retirement health and dental benefi ts, and post-re- tirement life insurance premiums. On top of that, Sears announced it would be doling out retention bonuses totalling $9.2 million to entice key staff to stay with the company during the restructuring. And while the company later announced a "hardship fund" of $500,000 would be off ered to Prolonged standing carries health risks Workers primarily standing on job twice as likely to suff er heart attack, congestive heart failure: Study BY SARAH DOBSON FOR ALL the talk about the per- ils of sitting too much on the job, what about workers who stand for a long time? at's also not good, according to a study. Even after taking into account a range of personal, health and work factors, people who primar- ily stand on the job are twice as likely as those who primarily sit to have a heart attack or congestive heart failure, according to a study by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) and the Institute for Clini- cal Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto. e risk of heart disease among people who stand on the job (at 6.6 per cent) is even higher than among daily smokers (5.8 per cent), found the 12-year study. "We do a lot in the workplace to prevent people from being exposed to smoke because we understand it's a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but we do virtually nothing to prevent people from being exposed to prolonged standing," said Peter Smith, a se- nior scientist at IWH who led the research. "And if we think about it as a risk factor of a similar magnitude to smoking, that really provides an impetus to start focusing on it as a risk factor and something that should be modified within the workplace." Background e study followed 7,300 workers in Ontario who were initially free of heart disease and were respon- dents to the 2003 Canadian Com- munity Health Survey (CCHS), which collected information on personal factors, health condi- tions, health behaviours and work conditions. It also collected job title infor- mation to estimate if a job primar- ily involved sitting, standing/walk- ing, a combination of the three or other body postures (such as bending or kneeling). e most common jobs with prolonged standing included re- tail salespeople and sales clerks, cooks, food and beverage servers, machine operators and customer service representatives in fi nancial services. e study estimated nine per cent of the group predominantly stood at work while 37 per cent predominantly sat. e research- ers then linked the information BENEFITS > pg. 10 BONUSES > pg. 6 BRIGHTER OUTLOOK On Sept. 1, ATB Financial said Alberta's worst recession in three decades was over, with expected economic growth of 3.2 per cent this year. However, challenges remain, especially in the energy sector where oil prices have remained low. Credit: Calin Tatu (Shutterstock) Every employee has two minds at work — a rational rider with a pointy stick directing an emotional but heavy-lifting elephant, says one expert 70-year milestone Bob Bellamy has worked for just one company all his life page 19 page page 8

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