Upcoming Webinar: December 5, 2024 @ 12:30 P.M. (ET)  |  What’s new in Québec? Legislative updates and recent cases you should know about |  Register Today!

Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

What employers can learn from #MeToo

I started seeing the #metoo hashtag being posted by friends and acquaintances on Twitter and Facebook one Sunday evening, and by the next morning it seemed that every woman I knew had chimed in. For those who don’t know, a picture started circulating on social media that read: If all the women who have been

Read More

There’s an app for that, but should you use it? How technology can (and can’t) assist in combating workplace harassment

In 2017, technology is a part of our everyday experience. In a world where Amazon has replaced the corner store and Tinder has replaced the local bar, it’s not surprising that businesses are now turning to apps and artificial intelligence to assist with workplace harassment reporting and investigations. Using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify potentially

Read More

“You’ll never believe what these people did at work.”

Courts and Tribunals have increasingly found in many instances that harassment “need not occur in the physical workplace to find that it occurred ‘in the workplace’”. To be the workplace, legal decision makers have focused on whether there is a nexus between the activity or the location and work. This is an interesting question of

Read More

Managerial responsibility – workplace complaints

I had the opportunity to participate recently in a discussion on managerial action/inaction in relation to harassment complaints. One of the participants commented that it was hard to believe, but true, that there were still managers in her workplace who did not take action of any sort after an employee had reported concerns of harassment

Read More

Ontario’s new Sexual Violence and Harassment Action Plan Act and why workplace investigations have suddenly become more important

On October 27, 2015, the Ontario government tabled its Sexual Violence and Harassment Action Plan Act (Supporting Survivors and Challenging Sexual Violence and Harassment) 2015 (the “Act”).  The Act amends the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and in particular, those provisions brought in through Bill 168 in 2010 that set out employers’ obligations to have

Read More

Protecting the bystander: Strategies in workplace harassment prevention and investigations

After years of research and related policies and training, workplace harassment prevention remains a challenge for many employers.  The reality of this persisting problem in many workplaces demands further education and new and creative responses, especially when considering the role and impact upon bystanders. Bystanders are individuals who observe harassment in the workplace firsthand.  Depending

Read More