Canadian HR Reporter Weekly

3 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2018 June 6, 2018 e signs must be posted in a conspicuous manner, unobstructed from view at each entrance and exit of the enclosed workplace — including washrooms — and in sufficient numbers to ensure employees and patrons are aware that smoking and the use of electronic cigarettes is prohibited, she said. Signs must be a specific size and while examples of the updated signs are not yet available on the government's website, they are expected to be posted later in June. "is not a new requirement," said Quinlan. "Signs were required to be placed in the same locations under the earlier act… e new legislation requires employers to update their signs within the workplace." Organizations should follow this ruling to the letter in order to avoid significant penalization, she said, as posted monetary fines range from $250 to $600,000. Retaliation against an employee seeking enforcement of the act is also prohibited. Advice for HR Human resources practitioners should watch closely for the government's publication of signage, she said. "As soon as it's available, make arrangements to obtain copies such that you can post it in every location in your workplace that's required, and ensure that everyone is aware of these new obligations — that they cover tobacco in its traditional form, medicinal cannabis, and then any kind of electronic cigarette or vaping, with further prescribed methods of use to be determined later." Employers should also expand relevant HR policy to note that smoking both electronic cigarettes and medical cannabis is not permitted within enclosed workplaces. ey must also ensure no ashtrays or similar equipment remain in the enclosed workplaces, said Quinlan. However, employers would be wise to go above and beyond the legislative requirements, according to Robert Schwartz, executive director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit in Toronto, a resource centre of the Smoke-Free Ontario Strategy. e cost of having employees who smoke is a major one for employers when it comes to sick leave and lost productivity, he said. "Smokers miss a lot more days of work than do no- smokers. Smokers are (also) less productive because they take smoke breaks." Ensuring workplaces are smoke-free and restricting smoking in outdoor workplaces are important steps employers can take to address this issue, according to Schwartz. "Employers have the perfect legal right to restrict smoking wherever they want," he said. "It's in every employer's interest to prevent their employees from starting to smoke and to help those who are smoking quit because there's a net economic benefit to the employer from doing that." e province recently ran a successful pilot project, partnering with employers to offer workplace cessation options, said Schwartz. Seventy per cent of active smokers want to quit, and "being able to do that in a group situation with support — I think it has tremendous opportunity." Credit: metamorworks / Shutterstock 1 in 5 Ontarians smoke Smoking continues to have an unhealthy effect on workers, according to Robert Schwartz, executive director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit (OTRU) in Toronto. In the 1960s, more than 40 per cent of Ontarians actively smoked tobacco, while today's figure is down to about 16.4 per cent, he said. As of 2015, 20 per cent of Ontarians 12 years or older had used a wider variety of tobacco products within the last month, including cigarettes, cigars, pipes and smokeless tobacco, according to an OTRU report released in March — a "shocking" figure, said Schwartz. "In the past five years, there's been very little progress," he said. "We've known since the 1960s that tobacco kills and it makes a lot of people sick… The fact that, 50 years later, we're still in a situation where a fifth of the population is using tobacco? It's absurd." "People are aware. People know the health effects, and they still smoke," said Schwartz. About 150,000 Canadians take up the habit every year, he said. "Those are young people. People don't start to smoke after the age of 21, 22 — very few." Both Ontario and Canada have adopted smoking reduction strategies aimed at having less than five per cent of citizens using tobacco by 2035, according to Schwartz, and Ontario hopes to reduce its rate to 10 per cent by 2023. "To get there, we actually need drastic and bold steps."

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