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Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

Say what you mean – Plain language and workplace policies 

My colleagues Christine Thomlinson and Lori-Ann Green recently wrote about how an organization’s respect at work policies, often written to comply with its legal obligations and to correspond with legislative requirements, may use legal and technical language which can be difficult to interpret, and may, from the perspective of those whom the policy is designed to protect, not be easy to navigate.1

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FAQs About Workplace Restoration

Janice Rubin and I recently completed a two-part webinar series on workplace restoration. During the sessions, we received several interesting questions, all of which we did not get the opportunity to answer. The questions were excellent and thought provoking and represent some of the questions that we are frequently asked when engaging in this work.

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Data and Investigation Series: How can organizations use investigation data to benefit their workplaces?

This is the third and final post in a series of blog posts that I wrote on data and investigations.

To recap, workplace investigations are also an invaluable source of data that organizations can use in a variety of ways – outside of the investigation process – to help their workplaces get into the zone – the optimal workplace that is characterized by respect, civility, tolerance, inclusivity, and no, or few, employment-related legal problems.

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Make it your policy to review your policy: Identifying policy issues that affect workplace investigation reports

In most of our workplace investigations, the organization that retains us asks us to measure our findings of fact against one or more of their policies. This means that, once we have made findings of fact, we must decide whether the respondent’s conduct has breached a policy or policies that the organization has asked us to apply.

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Bill C-65 – 3 years later … Are you up to date?

Where does the time go? Federally-regulated organizations surely recall the passing of Bill C-65 which amended the harassment and violence provisions of the Canada Labour Code (“CLC”). They also no doubt recall the accompanying Work Place Harassment and Violence Prevention Regulations (“Regulations”) that came into effect in January of 2021, and set out more specific requirements for those employers that fall within federal jurisdiction.

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5 solutions pratiques pour améliorer le climat de travail

Alors que je faisais la queue à l’aéroport, pour passer au contrôle de sécurité, quelqu’un a bousculé la femme et l’enfant qui étaient derrière moi pour passer devant. Frappée par l’indécence (et l’audace) de cet acte irrespectueux, j’ai décidé de faire remarquer discrètement à l’individu en question ce qu’il venait de se passer. En réponse, non seulement a-t-il nié l’acte reproché, mais il a levé le ton et m’a dit de me mêler de mes affaires, sans se gêner de ponctuer le tout de grossièretés. Wow! De quoi élever le manque de respect initial à un tout autre niveau!

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5 Simple ways to help elevate workplace culture

I was waiting in a security line at the airport last week when someone brushed past the woman and child behind me to jump the line. I was struck by the rudeness (and boldness) of this act of incivility and so I discretely pointed it out to the offender. They responded by raising their voice, denying the act, and telling me to mind my own business in a fit of profanity. Whew! That took the initial incivility to a whole other level!

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