HR Considerations for Canadian News Businesses

Written by Kelly-Anne Riess on behalf of LION Publishers.

Keeping compliant with Canadian laws and regulations

Understanding federal and provincial laws and regulations is important because it will protect your journalism business from inadvertently receiving hefty fines or facing legal action from your employees.

For example, employers can face fines for violating health and safety regulations under the Canada Labour Code or for violating overtime requirements set by the Employment Standards Act.

You should become aware of the following laws and regulations to protect your business.  

Employment/Labour Standards: Familiarise yourself with the labour laws in your province or territory governing employment conditions, such as working hours, wages, and leaves of absence. 

Occupational Health and Safety: Ensure compliance with workplace safety regulations in your province and territory to provide a safe environment for your employees.

The Canada Safety Office has a guide on Office Safety available for purchase on its website.

If you want to apply for the Canada Summer Jobs wage subsidy, you must demonstrate that you have implemented adequate measures to ensure the intern is aware of health and safety practices in the work environment, even if they are working from home. This includes offering training in the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS). Several companies can be found online that offer WHMIS training.

Queen’s University offers a free health and safety checklist for those working from home.  

Human Rights: Understanding the human rights laws specific to your province or territory is essential for ensuring compliance and fostering a fair and inclusive work environment. These laws provide guidelines for promoting diversity, preventing discrimination, and upholding the rights of employees throughout their tenure with your news business.

These laws assert that every individual has the right to equal treatment in the workplace without facing discrimination or harassment based on prohibited grounds such as race, age, or family status. 

The concept of equal treatment covers all aspects of the workplace environment and throughout the employment life cycle, including recruitment, training, promotions, pay rates, performance evaluations, and termination.

Anti-harassment policies:

It’s important to create a workplace culture that prioritises mutual respect and ensures freedom from harassment. 

Failing to address instances of harassment can result in the employer being held accountable for their employees’ actions. To mitigate this risk, it is essential to have an anti-harassment policy and provide anti-harassment training to supervisors and staff.

An anti-harassment policy clarifies the rights and responsibilities of both employees and the organisation. It educates employees on what constitutes harassment, the reporting procedures, and available support. This promotes transparency and empowers individuals to seek support if they experience or witness harassment.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission offers a free template for employers creating an anti-harassment policy.

Employee Privacy: 

Understand your responsibilities for safeguarding employee personal information and be sure to comply with applicable privacy laws in your province or territory.

Balancing privacy with the need for relevant employee information is essential for maintaining a positive work environment. 

Regardless of legal requirements, creating a workplace culture that values and respects privacy contributes to employee morale, mutual trust, and overall business success.

Employee personal information encompasses various data, such as pay and benefits records, attendance reports, personnel files, video or audio recordings, web-browsing history, email content, and keystrokes. Be mindful of the sensitivity and confidentiality of this information.

Employee privacy laws are important in Canada because they protect employees’ personal information from being collected, used or disclosed without their consent.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) enforces the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which applies to businesses. Non-compliance with PIPEDA can result in fines of up to $100,000.

Here’s a brief guide to help you navigate privacy laws, obligations, and best practices in your hiring and workplace management. You can find many policy generators online, like this one. 

• Collect only necessary information for clearly identified purposes.
• Seek meaningful consent for collecting, using, and disclosing personal information. For more information on how to do this, see the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Guidelines for obtaining meaningful consent.
• Even when consent is not required, be transparent about information practices, provide employees with meaningful notice, and outline policies that govern personal information handling.
• Use or disclose personal information only for the intended purposes unless otherwise consented to or legally permitted.
• Inform employees about how their information is collected and used, grant them access to their personal information, and allow them to challenge its accuracy and completeness.
• Limit access to employee information to those who genuinely require it.
• Maintain accurate, complete, and up-to-date employee personal information.
• Develop clear policies and procedures for collecting, using, and disclosing employee personal information. Update them as needed when introducing new programs or making substantial changes.
• If monitoring employees, ensure it is reasonable, proportionate, and minimally intrusive. Avoid unnecessary surveillance.
• When considering employee monitoring (workplace surveillance or activity tracking, for example), ensure it aligns with privacy rights. Assess privacy risks and implement mitigating measures. Unless exceptional circumstances arise, transparently communicate monitoring purposes, methods, and potential consequences to employees.
• Employees have the right to access personal information collected through monitoring. Establish practices to address access requests for access, privacy compliance challenges, and potential complaints.
• Implement physical, organisational, and technological safeguards to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, including protecting against “employee snooping” incidents – where employees inappropriately access other employees’ personal information.
• Consent does not waive an organisation’s obligations under privacy laws. Even with consent, organisations must still comply with legal requirements and obligations related to accountability, collection limitation, and safeguards.

Keeping current

Staying up to date with HR trends and changes in labour issues is important. Regularly review and adapt your HR policies and practices to ensure compliance with evolving legislation. Canadian HR Reporter is a magazine that HR professionals subscribe to keep up with the latest regulations. 

Consider seeking legal assistance to understand and navigate specific requirements that may impact your organisation.

Many HR companies in Canada are available to work for your business on a retainer or a per-project basis, such as helping your business draft the necessary employee policies or conducting employee reviews. 

Building a successful journalism business in Canada is about more than just publishing stories and gaining an audience. It’s about conducting your business ethically, responsibly, and with the utmost regard for Canadian law and regulations, especially with respect to your employees.