Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

Vive la France? Is limiting after-hours email a good thing?

This week, approximately one million workers in France in the digital and consultancy sector won a legally-binding agreement protecting them from having to respond to email outside of working hours – that is before 9 a.m. and after 6 p.m.  There has been much talk since about the effect that limiting email outside of working

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International be kind to lawyers day – Tuesday, April 8, 2014

No, I didn’t make that up.  It’s really a day, at least insofar as any “International…Day” is really a day.  This movement was started by Steve Hughes, a non-lawyer from St. Louis who works with lawyers in his presentation and rainmaking business and thought that, as a group, they weren’t so bad.  In fact, he

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The IQ principles

Recently my colleague and I had the opportunity to travel to Iqaluit, Nunavut in order to provide workplace investigation training. As part of my preparation for our trip, I was introduced to the concept of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, a term for Inuit traditional knowledge and information that is passed down through oral history, customs and traditions.

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Avoiding the sticker shock of a workplace investigation

There seem to be no shortage of articles and blogs these days touting the merits of conducting workplace investigations in many circumstances (we know because we write a lot of them). You read about how they can improve the workplace and help employers avoid legal liability. What you don’t often see written about is how

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No just cause after employer fails to investigate allegations of anti-Semitic remarks

An employer alleges that an employee made anti-Semitic remarks about the employer’s owners, the employer reacts and terminates the employee for cause, an investigation is not conducted, and the employee is not given an opportunity to respond to the allegations before he is terminated. This was the case in Ludchen v. Stelcrete Industries Ltd., where

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An alternative to the traditional investigation model

In addition to traditional workplace investigations, sometimes we are asked to conduct broader inquiries into concerns of systemic barriers and discriminatory policies and practices. To do so, we use a variety of information gathering techniques such as policy reviews, data analysis, questionnaires, focus groups and one-on-one interviews. As the variety of matters for which organizations

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Beware talk of retirement…

I was chatting recently with a friend about someone we both know who was forced to find employment at an advanced age because of his financial circumstances. There was no doubt in our minds that our mutual acquaintance would have far preferred to spend the remaining years of his life doing something other than pounding

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Help! I have a terrible workplace investigation report on my desk

Unfortunately, for those of us who support employers through workplace investigations, it is almost inevitable that one day, a truly terrible workplace investigation report will land on our desks. These reports may be prepared by people internal to our clients’ workplaces, or they may be prepared by an external investigator. What do I mean by

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New Year’s resolutions reinvented

On my run this morning, I passed store windows filled with all sorts of tools and inspiration for every possible resolution: losing weight, getting organized, exercising more…I came home inspired to do my own planning for 2014.  But when I flipped through the newspaper, I came across an article by a columnist who updated us

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Ho ho ho hold it – When does celebrating Christmas in the workplace cross a line?

This time of year we find ourselves answering questions about what type of workplace celebrations are appropriate. Is wishing colleagues “Merry Christmas” a neutral greeting or is it offensive?  Is it acceptable to have a Christmas tree in the office?  Is Secret Santa a human rights problem? The reality is that not everyone celebrates Christmas.

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