Transition back to the office must be dealt with sensitively

As we move further into 2022, and seemingly away from the overriding threat of COVID, there’s still some issues for employers that are keen to return to “normality”. Accommodation requests are coming at HR thick and fast – with certain issues continuing to be seen again and again. HRD spoke with Ryley Mennie, principal at Miller Titerle Law Corporation and speaker at our upcoming Employment Law Masterclass, who revealed the main areas of concern for employers looking to acquiesce to accommodation requests.

“The main question that comes up is whether or not employers adhere to a remote working arrangement,” he told HRD. “A lot of employees have gotten quite used to the working from home set up."

The transition back and forth is a little disruptive – from in-office to remote work and back again. Employees have made arrangements to overhaul their homes, setting up remote offices and workspaces – ones a lot of staff want implemented on a permanent basis. This means that employers need to approach with a nuanced response – not an aggressive dismissal of requests.

“Sometimes there isn’t a strict legal basis for an employee to require remote working accommodation anymore, but there's an operational motivation to try to accommodate,” added Mennie.

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By working with employees and being flexible to their requests, employers can boost morale, heighten productivity, and hold on to top talent. In the current candidate-led market, employees have the say. As such, if you present yourself as an inflexible and uncompromising employer, you’ll no doubt have a harder time coaxing candidates through your door.

“I can speak from my own personal experience that it’s difficult to find support when there's a message from our public health officials to reduce contact and to avoid mixing your bubble with other with other groups,” Mennie told HRD. “It can be tricky to find support in those circumstances.”

But it’s not all WFH woes. When the pandemic hit, the divide between vaxxers and anti-vaxxers continues to grow. From the ‘Freedom Convoy’ to Quebec’s recently reversed ‘no vax, pay tax’ law, employers are grappling with requests around workplace health and safety measures on a daily basis.

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“Another major accommodation request is an exemption from vaccination policies and other preventative measures,” Mennie told HRD. “There was recent a case in which employees sought to challenge mask requirements in their workplace. Our provincial British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled that there was no basis to challenge the mask wearing requirements. The courts published that in the interest of cautioning those sorts of accommodation requests because there was a floodgates of complaints – some people just didn't believe in the effectiveness of mask wearing mandates. However, I don't see that coming up too much as it’s been firmly established now –it’s not something that employers are required to accommodate outside of very specific circumstances.”

To hear more from Mennie and other employment law experts, register for our upcoming Employment Law Masterclass here.