{"id":18391,"date":"2020-05-15T09:45:14","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T13:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benefitscanada.com\/news\/legal-considerations-for-employers-as-pandemic-drags-on-146009"},"modified":"2020-05-15T09:45:14","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T13:45:14","slug":"legal-considerations-for-employers-as-pandemic-drags-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2020\/05\/15\/legal-considerations-for-employers-as-pandemic-drags-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal considerations for employers as pandemic drags on"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Copyright <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Martha Porado<\/span> | May 15, 2020 <\/p>\n

With the coronavirus pandemic set as the backdrop for the foreseeable future, employers are getting mixed signals about the best way to function safely and effectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to look at this from the perspective of [having] the federal government saying, \u2018Here\u2019s what we think you should do,’\u201d says Kathleen Chevalier, partner at Stikeman Elliott LLP. \u201cYou\u2019ve got each provincial government coming out with guidelines, reopening plans, regulations for employers. Then you\u2019ve got the public health authorities. And it would be a gross oversimplification to say all of those are in step with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read: 41% of Canadian businesses have laid off staff due to coronavirus: Stats Can<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

For organizations where all or the majority of employees can do their jobs from home, many are pulling together policies and procedures to ensure the parameters of remote work are clear, she says. \u201cThese are more about setting the groundwork and laying out expectations for people while they\u2019re working from home. Obviously, the expectation is you\u2019re still working, you\u2019re still being productive, still being efficient. You\u2019re still expected to request and track vacation time. You\u2019re still requested to let us know if you\u2019re taking sick time. More important than ever is the appropriate tracking and reporting of overtime, because the lines are blurring and people are working at odd hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chevalier also urges employers to remember there\u2019s a possibility that a person\u2019s home environment may not be safe, an aspect that often gets overlooked in remote working arrangements.<\/p>\n

Further, she suggests that employers consider whether certain aspects of a job may be more difficult when working from home and lay out agreements and procedures for employees to follow, such as the handling of confidential information. \u201cI can tell you I haven\u2019t printed a single thing since I started working from home, because I\u2019m just not confident in my ability to shred it. I\u2019m not confident my kid won\u2019t take it and use it as a colouring sheet the next day. I\u2019ve been completely paperless since I got home, which is great but not everyone can do it. So it\u2019s about an employer getting in front of those issues instead of dealing with the fallout if confidential information makes its way into the recycling bin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read: Employers expect remote, flexible arrangements to linger after coronavirus: survey<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Employers should also be wary of assuming employees are making, or are even able to make, the best choices around the use of technology and related security concerns, adds Chevalier. \u201cFor most people, it\u2019s not like you\u2019re going home and working on your old desktop computer. Most people have laptops from their employers already, which is great because it has the appropriate virus protection, malware protection, software already set up. But if not, employers have to deal with that and, from a tech perspective, get people where they should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, many employers have had to make modifications to work hours, pay and other compensation, she notes. While it\u2019s tricky to put these arrangements in writing \u2014 as employers have no clear timeline on when the pandemic will be over \u2014 it can be a useful moment to communicate with workers in an official capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the clients that we\u2019ve had, a recommendation they generally did was put some form of agreement in place, where people would sign off on it. Both parties tended to feel like they needed to see it and to understand it and to have those rules of engagement going forward. And in most cases, employers aren\u2019t able to say this is for the next two weeks or six months, it\u2019s just this is how it is right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chevalier also notes that having an official communications strategy, including laying things out in writing, is an opportunity for employers with staff on furlough. Helping employees to understand what the employer is doing and why, as well as directing them to the government supports available to them, is one way to curtail some of the suffering that comes with such a situation.<\/p>\n

Read: Remote working, distributed workforces could be part of new normal post-coronavirus<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Martha Porado | May 15, 2020 With the coronavirus pandemic set as the backdrop for the foreseeable future, employers are getting mixed signals about the best way to function safely and effectively. \u201cYou have to look...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}