When Canada Goose employees received an email on Monday, March 25, telling them not to come into the office the following day, they feared the worst.
The last time they received a directive like that was in August and it preceded a round of layoffs.
This time around there were terminations too, but with one key difference: people were informed of their layoff from the luxury parka maker via email.
The decision to approach terminations this way was described as “inhumane,” and “disheartening” by three former employees who spoke with Global News and shared some of the email communications they received on condition of anonymity.
Global is protecting their identities as they fear repercussions for speaking with the media and worry it may harm their future employment prospects.
“Being terminated after years of being successful at your job is traumatic,” one laid off worker tells Global News. “It’s being done through emails and you really feel like you’re just a number and you didn’t matter.”
In a statement to Global News on Thursday, Canada Goose’s chief human resources officer Jess Johannson said: “decisions like this are heartbreaking — we understand the human impact they have, and we know there’s no perfect way to share this kind of news.”
She went on to say, “our focus was to ensure that our team members were treated with respect and dignity and given the grace to process the news on their own time.”
Shortly after 9 a.m. that day, employees received two emails: one from Reiss laying out the restructuring plans; another from Canada Goose Human Resources contained notices of termination for those who were being laid off.
“I was completely shocked and I was truly blindsided,” one former employee said.
Johannson points out that every employee affected was invited to schedule a virtual meeting with “a Human Resources Business Partner.” She says that while some employees chose to schedule those immediately, others opted to speak at a later time.
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Canada Goose said the meeting could happen “as soon as they [the former employee] want to.”
Two of the former workers say that putting the onus on people who had just received termination notices to schedule a follow-up with HR was “traumatic.”
One of them claimed they didn’t “get human contact for hours after notice” and human resources was “not proactively reaching out.”
When asked about these specific claims, Canada Goose referred to its earlier statement from Johannson that said the focus was “to ensure that our team members were treated with respect and dignity and given the time to process the news on their own time” and that affected employees were able to schedule a meeting “at a time that worked best for the employee.”
The company reiterated: “We know there’s no perfect way to share this kind of news” and “some employees chose to schedule those [meetings] immediately, while others appreciated the opportunity to speak at a later time.”
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The former employee called it “disheartening because I think they deserved a little bit more sympathy, empathy and a human conversation rather than an electronic communication.”
All three expressed disappointment at Canada Goose’s email strategy. One said they were “extremely disappointed that a Canadian icon would go down this route.”
One of the restructuring casualties is a longtime employee who says they have dedicated themselves to building up the storied brand. They say the email-first layoff approach “wasn’t aligned” with the company’s wholesome image.
“The Canada Goose culture has always prided itself on treating people fairly, with as much respect as possible.”
Global News asked Canada Goose about these claims, but the company did not directly address them in its response.
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With the rise of remote work, email pink slips are becoming increasingly common, according to labour and employment lawyer Lior Samfiru, national co-managing partner of Toronto-based Samfiru Tumarkin LLP. Before the pandemic he says instances of it were rare; he had dealt with two such cases in two decades.
Samfiru says layoff notifications via email aren’t illegal, but he advises against them because they leave too much to chance.
He says they’re “a bad idea” because employers have a duty to inform employees of their termination in a timely fashion but a digital-first email process means some communication can slip through the cracks, going unopened because it was missed, undelivered or ended up in a spam folder.
“The timing of when someone received that notice of termination may be very important,” Samfiru told Global News on Thursday.
Best layoff practices allow laid-off employees to ask questions, without putting the burden on them to take the next steps while they’re in shock over losing their job. When that doesn’t happen, frustrated employees often seek legal counsel.
In fact, he tells Global News that about a dozen former Canada Goose employees have reached out to his law firm with questions.
“When an employee terminates by email, it potentially exposes them to legal action because they’re essentially driving their employees to a lawyer,” Samfiru says.
Email layoffs ‘distressing’: HR expert
Andrew Monkhouse, adjunct professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, has expertise in both the legalities of being let go as well as HR practices. He tells Global News that traditionally, people were told in person that they were being let go but the pandemic has upended both the way that we work and the way that terminations are conducted, ushering in trends such as email layoffs.
“It’s becoming more common because more people are working from home, including HR staff,” he said Thursday. Cost-cutting and the need to let many people know about terminations, while using the smallest number of resources possible, are factors too.
Monkhouse says the best practice remains letting an employee know they’re laid off through one-on-one direct communication, whether that’s in person or remotely and following up with written correspondence. Like Samfiru, he also advises against using email as a first method of contact.
“People expect that there’s a certain level of dignity in being let go,” he says. “Receiving an email letting you know that you’ve been terminated can be quite distressing.”
From an etiquette perspective, Samfiru warns that an email approach may further exacerbate an already stressful situation.
“That employee may leave employment with a bad taste in their mouth and bad feelings towards that employer,” he says.
Samfiru says the remote work trend is not an excuse to bypass workplace courtesy.
“We still have the ability, technology, means and resources to arrange for the employee to meet with the person letting them go, have their questions answered, to be treated respectfully.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
