News from April 2004

UK employers urged to assess risks of work stress
(Apr. 28 '04)

Legal advice to UK employers in the wake of recent court rulings is to assess the risks of stress in their workplaces. A recent House of Lords judgement that awarded damages to a stressed-out teacher has highlighted the employer's obligation to reduce the health-related stress risks to employees. The UK Health and Safety Executive, a government agency, also has encouraged employers to be more proactive in dealing with workplace stressors.

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Corporate responsibility for wellness
(Apr. 16 '04)

A report in the Washington Post cites a 2003 American Management Association survey that 71% of executives polled believe corporations "have a responsibility to promote wellness among employees." According to the Society of Human Resource Management's 2003 benefits survey, some 57% of employers in the US offer a wellness program, resource, or information (the latter 2 categories are vague). The main driver of this trend? It all boils down to lowering health insurance costs, and increasingly wellness is becoming a way to cut America's high incidence of obesity.

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Banning mandatory retirement
(Apr. 15 '04)

Mandatory retirement is not blanket age discrimination, but part of a mutually agreed employment relationship negotiated between an employee (or union) and an employer. The legal status of mandatory retirement in Canada (unlike the US, where it was banned in 1986) is complex, and mostly falls under human rights legislation. So far, no good reasons have been presented for Canadian governments to override company personnel policies or collective agreements that set a retirement age. These and other cogent arguments against banning mandatory retirement are presented by Professor Morley Gunderson in a C.D. Howe Institute paper, Banning Mandatory Retirement: Throwing Out the Baby With the Bathwater.

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Sunday night syndrome: anxieties of facing the work week
(Apr. 8 '04)

Sunday night syndrome strikes as start of workweek looms. Monday morning meetings make stress worse. End-of-weekend anxiety is symptomatic of increasing job pressures, according to David Stonehouse, writing for CanWest News Service, 5 April 2004. There's no solid research on this issue, but the anecdotes raise important questions about the work-life interface.

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New perk in US: cheap housing
(Apr. 8 '04)

A growing number of employers in the US are offering subsidized housing to lure knowledge workers into high-priced urban areas. There is no sign this is a trend in Canada, especially with record low interest rates, but as housing costs in our largest cities steadily climb and commute times increase, housing issues are bound to become even bigger factors in career decisions.

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