The lazy days of summer are coming to an end, and it’s time to get the kids ready to get back to school. Unfortunately, with the ongoing labour dispute involving public schools across BC, it is instead a time of uncertainty and concern for both families and their employers. At the time of this writing, both sides have not been able to make any progress over the summer months, and a continuation of the strike/lockout involving the closure of all BC public schools looks set to continue into the fall.
As an employer, there will inevitably be disruptions in the personal and work lives of your employees with school-aged children if the labour dispute continue. If your staff have difficulty jugging work and child care, here are some considerations to keep in mind:
1. Be flexible – Consider alternate work arrangements if it makes sense for your business, culture and work requirements. Allow employees to work from home and outside of regular office hours. Flex start and end times so that employees can accommodate their child care activities. Conduct meetings via conference call or Skype to allow greater flexibility.
2. Maintain on-going communication – Talk to your employees now so that you can anticipate what disruptions there may be in the coming weeks. Brainstorm suggestions with your employees. Develop contingency plans for unexpected schedule disruptions.
3. Take paid time off – Encourage employees to use their vacation time or banked time off so that they can take care of their children and not be distracted at work and at home.
4. Temporary child care – If it is suitable for your workplace, allow employees to bring their children to work. In more family friendly environments, some employers have allowed children (particularly older children) to set up camp in a company meeting room for the day so that the kids are close to a parent but the parent can still work.
5. Unpaid time off – If employees don’t have any paid time off available, then under the Family Responsibility Leave provision of the BC Employment Standards Act, an employee can take up to 5 days of unpaid leave per year to take care of their children or members of the employee’s immediate family.
No one is going to be happy about the on-going labour dispute. Of course, employers can take a firm stance and say that employees must come to work, as scheduled, with no exceptions made to help employees deal with the disruptions caused by the labour dispute. However, a good employer will try to accommodate where possible in order to maintain positive employee relations, to build a stronger culture, and to show sensitivity and compassion.
As with any highly visible workplace dispute, there are a number of key HR lessons that businesses can learn to avoid costly mistakes:
1. Keep workplace disputes private and out of the media spotlight
When the parties to a dispute share their grievances and discuss their concerns in traditional or social media, it can cause harm to all involved. A lot of time and energy (and, likely, money) is spent developing and positioning the message, damage controlling, and responding to the other party’s latest media message. This often results in hard feelings and makes resolving the dispute more challenging. All the time spent dealing with the media also takes away resources from meeting with the other party to actually resolve the dispute.
2. Consider the impact of the dispute on your marketing and employer brands
Workplace disputes played out publicly can negatively impact your company’s brand. Customers may choose to end their relationship with you. Public school enrolment has declined while private school enrolment has increased over the years, hardly surprising given the decades of public mud-slinging by both sides about the decline of the quality of public school education and regular labour disputes disrupting the classrooms. From an employee perspective, the perception of the organization as a desirable place to work may also be negatively impacted if the dispute remains unresolved. This can hurt your ability to attract and retain talent. What impact will the dispute have on current employees but also on future ones – will they want to work for you?
3. Avoid costly & time-consuming litigation
Time, money and energy spent preparing for appearances in court or in front of labour tribunals heightens the acrimony between the parties, further entrenches positions, and is counter-productive towards reaching a settlement of the issues. In our experience, we’ve never seen a dispute resolved without face-to-face dialogue between the parties to solve the underlying issues. Focus on respectful communication with the other party, try to understanding their position, and keep talking to see what possible solutions exist. Using the services of a skilled mediator and/or arbitrator can be sometimes be helpful to move the process along.
4. What you resist, persists
The more effort you put towards “winning” the dispute and trying to have the other side “lose”, the less likely your desired outcome will occur. The more you fight against the other side, the harder they will fight back. Instead, work collaboratively with the other party to find common ground.
To stay informed on the status of collective bargaining and school closures, visit the Ministry of Education, BC Teachers’ Federation or the BC Public School Employers’ Association websites for information, or through the media. We hope the parties will resolve their differences and soon reach a settlement.
Copyright 2014 Clear HR Consulting Inc. All rights reserved.
