Holly McKenzie-Sutter, The Canadian Press Posted on Sunday, June 19, 2022, 10:21 AM EDT Last Updated on Sunday, June 19, 2022, 10:21 AM EDT
Liz Jasmine appreciates the flexibility of her work as a community nurse in Ottawa, but the combination of work at home and in the office, as well as a varied schedule, makes it difficult to break off a relationship when she is not working.
There is little clarity on what to do, for example, if a colleague working on a later shift has a question or is expected to answer if someone sends her an email at 10 p.m.
Jasmine can’t wait to see how her new workplace shutdown policy – now required by this month’s law for all employers in Ontario with 25 or more employees – will deal with these gray areas.
“Sometimes the waters are very muddy,” said Jasmine. “We hope that the implementation of the policy will clarify some of this.”
Affected employers had to have written rules by June 2nd. They still have 30 days to deliver them to staff, so many workers like Jasmin are still waiting to see how they set out.
The new law caused a stir about its potential to give people peace of mind to give up digital communications at the end of the working day. But experts and stakeholders say it is too vague to really move the needle on work-life balance, especially in the era of hybrid work.
Toronto employment lawyer Deborah Hudson said work-life balance issues are important as hybrid work becomes a permanent feature of many workers’ lives two years after the pandemic changed traditional norms.
But she said Ontario law missed the opportunity to have a real impact because it did not provide for what employers’ policies should contain.
“I think the spirit and the idea are fantastic. Just what does that really mean? ”Hudson said.
Business owners had the same issue before the June 2 deadline.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business conducted a survey that found that 33% of small businesses with 25 or more employees say they are unaware that they need to have a disconnect policy by then. Only 16% of companies say they have a policy in place by the deadline.
Julie Kwiecinski, CFIB’s provincial director, said she had heard from many confused companies that they wanted to comply with the law, but had not received clear guidance on how to do so.
“It’s like a double-edged sword, because on the one hand you like flexibility, because you don’t have hips,” she said.
“But on the other hand, it puts businesses in a really precarious position, because then they wonder what you have to put into this policy, which will be approved by a labor standards officer if he walks in the door and asks to see it?”
The Ministry of Labor said it did not have data on how many eligible employers had drafted policies, as they were not required to submit them.
Employers who fail to establish a policy can be fined, but the ministry is taking a “first education” approach.
The ministry said it had announced policy information via emails, newsletters and on the government’s website and was planning more educational webinars.
Monte McNaughton, who introduced the law as labor minister, said in an interview that implementing the policy is in the best interests of the employer.
“If you want to attract and retain talent – because it’s a big challenge we have here in Ontario – you have to step up and have these policies and recognize that when people run out at the end of the day, they have to give up. watch and spend time with their families, “he said.
The Employment Standards Act – and therefore the policy requirement for the right to sever ties – does not apply to Crown employees, the ministry said. But McNaughton said he was simply more aware of the problem and changed the situation in his own office.
“As soon as we introduced the legislation, I noticed a big difference,” he said. “People, myself included, did not push to send this email late at night or on weekends and kept it for Monday morning.
McNaughton said he wanted to see the impact of the law, and if “further action” was needed, the government would act. He will continue to change labor laws, especially to keep pace with technological change, he said.
Toronto’s John Gross, who owns a climbing gym, said it was not difficult to devise a policy and the process helped streamline operations by forcing a closer look at areas where newer staff called for help from senior officials outside the shift.
“Having this policy leads to a little more training to make them a little more self-sufficient so that they don’t have to call people to everyday things,” he said. “It helped us realize where we needed to improve our process a little bit.”
Other experts pointed to what they see as disadvantages of the law. David Dury, a professor of labor law at York University, said government descriptions of the policy as a “right to break up” were misleading because the law did not create any new rights for people.
He noted that there are no consequences if employers ignore their own disconnection policies. It also does not protect employees from disciplinary action if they ignore round-the-clock communications, which he says makes the law in its current form “generally useless”.
“The best we can say about the law is that it can make some employers change their way of thinking about after-hours communication, and that can be helpful for some workers,” Duri said.
Jim Stanford, an economist and director of the Center for Future Work in Vancouver, said advertising it as a “right to break up” could be detrimental to workers and that joining a union would do more to protect people.
Digital technology is part of the blurring of work and life, Stanford said, along with the “over-competitive” and precarious nature of many jobs where there is “implicit pressure” to work outside normal working hours to keep contracts or increase .
“In the absence of clear guidelines and clear protections for workers, this abuse of worker availability will worsen,” Stanford said.
“With files from Alison Jones.”
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