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In celebration of our twentieth anniversary, we have created the Rubin Thomlinson LLP Workplace Human Rights Award, in partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Learn More
In this blog, I highlight some practical applications of workplace assessments in the context of recently enacted “right-to-disconnect” legislation in Ontario and the issue of overwork more generally.
In human rights law, courts and tribunals will often find it useful to determine whether a claimant has established a prima facie case of discrimination. The test requires that the complainant has a protected characteristic under the relevant human rights legislation; that the complainant suffered disadvantage or adverse impact; and that the protected characteristic was a factor or had contributed to the disadvantage or adverse impact.
This is the first in a series of blogs that I will be writing on workplace whistleblowing. There is not a lot of practical information available on the topic and I want to help shed some light on how employers can be better prepared to deal with employees who blow the whistle.
I am somewhat of an anomaly in that I have a lot of hands-on experience with this subject matter. I have managed whistleblowing programs, conducted intake interviews with whistleblowers and investigated alleged wrongdoing disclosed by whistleblowers.
For this blog, I thought that a good place to start would be to provide general information about workplace whistleblowing given that it is a topic that is foreign to many.
Le 16 janvier 2020, Rubin Thomlinson donnait une conférence par webdiffusion sur les 10 cas à retenir de 2019 en matière d’enquêtes au travail. Voici les thèmes abordés et un résumé de cette présentation.
2020 is around the corner. Although I find this somewhat alarming and difficult to digest, I suppose the warning signs were fairly obvious. And I’m not necessarily talking about self-driving cars and intuitive robots per se; just the inevitable passage of time. As one decade ends and another one is due to commence, it strikes me as an opportune moment for reflection: a time to look at what we have come to know about issues of harassment in the workplace and consider what insight the lessons of the last decade offer for the future of workplace investigations in 2020.
I suspect that for many of you, conducting investigations and report writing is a once in a while occurrence rather than a full-time job like it is for us here at Rubin Thomlinson. Many of you are busy human resources professionals and counsel with endless competing day-to-day priorities. Likely, you are pulled in many different directions, putting out small fires and trying to keep up with all of those urgent emails and phone calls. For you, investigations may feel particularly disruptive and the process of producing a good-quality investigation report daunting.
As a workplace investigator, my job often requires me to consider how a person’s well-being might have been impacted as a result of a workplace incident. Something I occasionally neglect to do, however, is reflect on my own well-being and safety while at work. My colleague, Janice Rubin, wrote about the need for investigators to keep self care in mind but sometimes the dangers to our health are more immediate than stress or compassion fatigue. I asked my fellow investigators to share their experiences with safety issues while on the job, and below are some examples of hazards that investigators might encounter during the course of an investigation, and steps that can be taken to minimize the risk.
There’s a crispness in the air that reminds me that winter is just around the corner. At the risk of being “that person,” I love this season; sitting by a crackling fire with my family and a cup of tea is what I consider perfection. Like me, some human resources departments are also gearing up for their end-of-year gatherings – apparently, office holiday parties are back in style.
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