Even star employees shine a little less brightly after battling an hour of traffic on the way to work. Long commutes “can be very demoralizing” and can affect productivity, says Sandra Reder, president and founder of Vertical Bridge Corporate Consulting Inc. in Vancouver. Plus, a bad commute is one of the most common reasons employees […]
Drug plan design changes are often unavoidable, whether they’re due to a carrier modifying contracts across the board or an employer looking to manage ballooning costs. Generally, “plan sponsors are looking at programs like more managed formularies and, potentially, maximums,” says Suzanne Lepage, a private health plan strategist in Kitchener, Ont. “Changes driven at the […]
In its 2018 budget, the federal government created an advisory council on the implementation of national pharmacare, led by former Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins. The council, which solicited submissions from Canadians between June and September, is expected to release its final report in the spring. Whatever the report recommends, Canada is closer to a […]
Just six months after a City of Calgary employee started her job as a tractor-trailer driver, everything started to go wrong. Her foreman and indirect supervisor both ignored her concerns about the workload, insisting she simply wasn’t trying hard enough. They mocked her appearance, spread rumours she was having an affair with a colleague and […]
Until recently, Alberta common-law couples that were splitting up couldn’t divide their pension assets, even if both parties wanted to. This changed in April 2018, after the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta heard Lubianesky v. Gazdag. It determined the provision of the Employment Pension Plans Act that prevented such division was unconstitutional. In 2015, two […]
When Ontario abolished mandatory retirement in 2006, employers could still terminate benefits for workers who turned 65. But in May, the province’s Human Rights Tribunal determined the provision in the Human Rights Code that allowed employers to do so was unconstitutional. Previously, employers often offered benefits to older workers to encourage them to stay and […]
Over the past 10 years, administrative staff at arts non-profits have seen a decline in their employee benefits, according to a report by the Cultural Human Resources Council. Nearly 500 organizations participated in the survey, more than double the 218 respondents to the 2008 study. Therefore, the data may simply paint a clearer picture of the […]
With the #MeToo movement in full swing in recent months, criminal lawyer Marie Henein crystallized what needs to change at an event in Toronto recently. “The baseline must be changed,” Henein, a criminal lawyer and partner at Henein Hutchinson LLP, said at a University of Toronto lecture in February. “Women must be entitled to go […]
New federal legislation around pharmaceutical patents will impose significant costs on public and private drug plans, the parliamentary budget officer is predicting. The legislation would have cost drug plans and consumers an extra $392 million in 2015 had it been in place that year, the report, released in late April, estimates. Of that, $214 million […]
The hepatitis C hump is over. Since 2014, Health Canada has approved several promising medications for the disease. While the direct-acting antivirals offer cure rates of more than 90 per cent, they cost tens of thousands of dollars, and benefits plans felt the pinch. But now, “after an initial spike in treatment requests, claims have […]