Upcoming Webinar: April 13, 2023 @ 12:30 P.M. (EDT) | Ethical Issues in Workplace Investigations Register Today!
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
When organizations retain a workplace assessor to help reveal employee experiences of workplace harassment and sexual harassment, they usually ask the assessor to make recommendations as to what the organization should do next.
This is the second of a series of three posts in which I summarize what independent workplace assessments have revealed about the Canadian Armed Forces’ struggle to address sexual misconduct in the profession of arms.
Canada’s Defence Minister Anita Anand recently advised Parliament that she has ordered the Canadian Armed Forces to plan significant operational changes, meant to ground the cultural transformation required to reduce the CAF’s high rate of sexual misconduct amongst service members.
In October 2021, my colleague Dana Campbell-Stevens wrote a blog in which she addressed how the law views an individual’s gut feeling about being a victim of discrimination. A recent case from the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, Thomas v. Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority Inc., raises issues respecting the potential implications of an individual voicing such a gut feeling.
On July 4, 2021, the New York Times published a story about a leaked video capturing the host of ESPN’s “The Jump,” Rachel Nichols, a White woman, questioning the merit of her colleague, Maria Taylor, a Black woman…
Admittedly, writing about policy writing may not be the most exciting topic. It is, however, a really important one. A good policy is what sets up a whistleblower program for success. If done well, it can also give important information about what the whistleblower program entails to those who are thinking of reporting wrongdoing.
I have seen some policies that set out a specific hierarchy for reporting a complaint. The order sometimes starts off with addressing the matter directly with the person engaging in the unwelcome behaviour, followed by reporting it to a supervisor, that supervisor’s manager, Human Resources, and in cases where Human Resources is engaged in the alleged wrongdoing, a member of the executive team and/or an independent organization.
The first step in any new investigation is to review the workplace harassment policy. As both an investigator and someone who has written workplace harassment policies, I sometimes find myself sighing deeply as I conduct this review, knowing that some parts of the policy are going to make the investigation process harder – not only for me, but for the parties and the employer as well.
Follow us:
Rubin Thomlinson LLP
Tel: (416) 847-1814 | Fax: (416) 847-1815
Privacy Statement | Terms and Conditions
Copyright © 2023
