Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER September 18, 2017 18 INSIGHT AUTOMATED BLESSINGS TOKYO — e war on humans continues, as evidenced recently when a Japanese company intro- duced a robot who performs the duties of a Buddhist priest at fu- nerals. SoftBank's robot "Pepper" chants sutras in a computerized voice while tapping a drum, ac- cording to Reuters. Many Bud- dhist priests have had to work part-time to make ends meet, so when a priest is unavailable, Pep- per can step in at a cost of 50,000 yen (C$450) per funeral — com- pared to 240,000 yen (C$2,200) for a human priest. e priestly robot, who has not yet been hired, was on display at the Life Ending Industry Expo in Tokyo, a convention for the funeral industry. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT TOKYO — Also at the convention were undertakers demonstrating their skills in the ritual dressing of the dead. Twenty-three-year- old Rino Terai was the winner of a contest involving four contestants who dressed live human volunteers lying on mattresses on a stage, ac- cording to Reuters. "I practised ev- ery day to prepare for this compe- tition," she said. "I took videos and made improvements by asking my- self 'Does this look beautiful? Am I treating the deceased kindly?'" In Japan's Shinto religion, it's believed the soul is impure shortly after death and by dressing a body — usually in front of close relatives — the deceased spirit is purifi ed be- fore it goes off to the "other world." Japan's aging society has increased demand for undertakers with spe- cial skills, said Kimura Kouki, head of the Okuribito Academy. " ere are about 2,000 undertakers whose expertise is in dressing the de- ceased, but their skills vary a lot," he said. "I wanted this competition to be a way to spur undertakers to improve their skills." NOT QUITE EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH FAIRFIELD, N.J. — Security guard Larry Brooks was arrested recently after allegedly stealing US$100,000 in cash from his workplace — on his fi rst day. e 19-year-old was hired by Garda on July 25 and the very next day, security officials there contacted police after dis- covering money was stolen. e theft was allegedly caught on the company's surveillance video sys- tem, said the Fairfi eld Police De- partment in New Jersey, and se- curity offi cers recovered $85,900 from a vehicle parked in Brooks' neighbourhood. BORED TO DEATH LONDON, U.K. — A BBC obitu- ary editor may face some deathly stares after proclaiming he was "bored" of the extensive coverage of the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana's death. Nick Serpell was re- sponding to a question on Twitter by a BBC presenter asking what people thought about the atten- tion, according to the Daily Mail. "Hopefully today will be the last one on which we have to suff er mawkish media Diana drivel," said Serpell, who worked for the BBC when Diana died. e editor also retweeted a post by Times colum- nist Iain Martin saying: "Incredible drivel on BBC Newsnight about Diana. It is simply not the case ev- eryone capitulated to the madness that week. Millions of us didn't." Serpell apparently went on to tell the MailOnline: "People have all sorts of opinions. It was a private post, though I do appreciate that social media can sometimes be a very public place." W EIRD ORKPLACE THE Vol. 30 No. 15 – September 18, 2017 PUBLISHED BY Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ©Copyright 2017 by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. CANADIAN HR REPORTER is published 21 times a year. Publications Mail – Agreement # 40065782 Registration # 9496 – ISSN 0838-228X Director, Media Solutions, Canada: Karen Lorimer - (416) 649-9411 karen.lorimer@thomsonreuters.com EDITORIAL Publisher/Editor in Chief: Todd Humber - (416) 298-5196 todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com Editor/Supervisor: Sarah Dobson - (416) 649-7896 sarah.dobson@thomsonreuters.com News Editor Marcel Vander Wier - (416) 649-7837 marcel.vanderwier@thomsonreuters.com Employment Law Editor: Jeffrey R. 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Address changes and returns: Send changes and undeliverable Canadian addresses to: SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Canadian HR Reporter One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 CUSTOMER SERVICE Call: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5082 (Toronto) (877) 750-9041 (outside Toronto) Email: customersupport. legaltaxcanada@tr.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com CHRR reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. Todd Humber EDitOr'S NOteS A time for work and a time for play A lright, folks. It's time to dust off my curmudgeon stick — again. e kids are back in school and, aghast, the public school board in Toronto has banned Snapchat, Instagram and Netfl ix from being used by students. e reason? It simply takes too much of a toll on Wi-Fi bandwidth. About 20 per cent of all web traf- fi c in the classroom is taken up by these popular (and data-hungry) apps. When the ban was fi rst put in place, teachers were able to complete "key tasks such as atten- dance and registration," according to the Globe and Mail. Well, that's good. But don't panic, students — the school board is working on improving Wi-Fi speeds and the ban is only temporary. You'll soon be able to resume the selfi es and binge-watching in the halls. But, in the best "get off my lawn" voice I can muster, I don't think that's a good thing. I'm not worried about Wi-Fi bandwidth. I'm more concerned about the separation of work time and play time. Sure, I was born in the 1970s — so the idea of taking anything more than a lunch box and ther- mos to school is a pretty foreign concept to me. (Though I did have a Pac-man wristwatch, but I digress.) e idea that I could have a device in my pocket that could stream nearly every televi- sion show or movie ever made, broadcast live video and share everything I saw ad nauseam was straight outta Star Trek. But that is today's reality. And this blurring between work and leisure is going to pose more and more headaches in the workplace. Check out this thread from Reddit, posted by an IT worker who was asked by the boss to block Netfl ix for one user. "Recently we had a new hire, taking her fi rst baby steps into the professional world. For some reason, she didn't think it was odd to pull up YouTube on her fi rst day and watch FPS gaming vid- eos. On her fi rst day! All day." he wrote. " is continued — within a few days she had Netfl ix up and is marathoning Dexter, Mad Men, you name it. She doesn't hide it ei- ther, people will come over to talk to her, she'll pause her show, but leave it up half-screen." Let's leave aside for the moment the management debate and the merits of asking IT to block it, rather than dealing head on with the person — and just recognize that this young woman didn't see a problem with this behaviour. She probably has been doing it her whole life, multitasking her way through school and now in the workplace as she starts her career. If you haven't been around teenagers lately, it's an eye-open- ing experience. It's cliché to say they're glued to their devices — but they are glued to their devices. I've watched them load stuff into the car, bags in one hand and iPhone in the other, as the latest episode of Rick and Morty echoes from the device. I've watched them study for hours, with the constant beat of rap music in the background and countless interruptions from Snapchat, texts, Instagram, Houseparty — the list goes on. ey think nothing of it, and protest that it doesn't impact the task at hand. But these constant distractions undoubtedly mean you're being less eff ective at any given task. I'm not taking a holier than thou stance: I have an iPhone, and it's turned upside down as I write this column for a reason. It can be very distracting. ere are some amazing uses in the classroom and workplace for technology. YouTube, for exam- ple, can be an invaluable source for training videos and how-to guides. My partner's daughter used YouTube a lot in her senior year of high school to watch lectures on things she didn't understand or needed a refresher on. I thought that was brilliant — in my day, we would have had to run to the li- brary. Or, if we were really lucky, our parents had invested in a set of encyclopedias we could carry up from the basement. But she was able to just click over and watch an engaging lecture on chemistry to explain a concept she hadn't quite grasped in the classroom. But there's a big diff erence be- tween that and binging on Family Guy or taking a selfi e morphed with the latest and coolest Snap- chat fi lter. ere's a time for work, and there's a time for play. at's not a bad lesson to learn in the halls of our schools, and banning apps such as Netfl ix, Instagram and Snapchat shouldn't just be a short-term solution to a band- width issue. It should be a purposeful strat- egy adopted in all schools. THIS LITTLE PIGGY WENT TO MARKET LONDON, U.K.— It was an impressive rescue, with fi refi ghters rush- ing to save 18 piglets and two sows after an electrical fault set hay on fi re at a farm west of London, U.K., back in February. But the wee animals' days were still numbered as they were recently slaughtered, according to Reuters. And as a thank you, the farmer served up the sausages to the valiant fi refi ghters. Rachel Rivers wanted to show her appreciation for their eff orts. "I'm sure vegetar- ians will hate this," Rivers told the BBC. "I wanted to thank them. I promised them at the time I'd bring down some sausages for them, which they were all pleased about." e sau- sages were "fantastic," according to a spokesperson for the fi re service. Credit: Volodymyr Burdiak (Shutterstock) in cash from his workplace — on sponding to a question on Twitter It was an impressive rescue, with fi refi ghters rush- ing to save 18 piglets and two sows after an electrical fault set hay on fi re at a farm west of London, U.K., back in February. But the wee animals' days were still numbered as they were recently slaughtered, according to Reuters. And as a thank you, the farmer served up the sausages to the valiant fi refi ghters. Rachel Rivers wanted to show her appreciation for their eff orts. "I'm sure vegetar- ians will hate this," Rivers told the BBC. "I wanted to thank them. I promised them at the time I'd bring down some sausages Credit: Volodymyr Burdiak (Shutterstock) If you haven't been around teenagers lately, it's an eye-opening experience. They are glued to their devices.

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