8 NEWS
Career progression in spotlight with recovery
Company
Continued from Page 1
Originally, British Columbia
employers were forecasting an
increase to the salary budget
of 2.8 per cent. Now, it’s 2. 6
per cent. For Saskatchewan,
the original forecast was 3. 3
per cent, now it’s 2.8 per cent.
For Manitoba, 3. 1 per cent
has been lowered to 2.8 per
cent and for Atlantic Canada
a forecast of 2. 6 per cent has
dropped to 2. 4 per cent.
However, Alberta bucked the
trend, going from 3. 6 per cent
to 3. 7 per cent, and Ontario and
Quebec stayed about the same,
predicting increases to the salary budget of 2.8 per cent and
2. 9 per cent, respectively.
Gail Evans, president of HR
consulting firm Wynford Group
in Calgary, said the recovery is
in full swing, with few staff reductions and recruitment back
to normal levels. For 2012, almost 60 per cent of employers
are planning to replace all vacancies, compared to less than
50 per cent in 2011, according
to her firm’s survey of more
than 325 employers in the fall.
“The economy seems to be
stable, the outlook, at least in
North America, seems to be
reasonably stable — nothing
crazy is going to happen in an
election year in the U.S.”
The optimism continued in
the Wynford Group’s survey,
with the projected national
average base salary increase
climbing to 3. 23 per cent for
2012. Alberta was strongest, at
3.54 per cent, followed by B.C.
( 3.37 per cent) and Saskatche-
wan ( 3.43 per cent). Ontario is
forecasting 3. 22 per cent while
the Atlantic provinces ( 3. 2 per
cent) are quite stable, said Ev-
ans. Manitoba ( 3. 15 per cent)
and Quebec ( 3. 19 per cent) fol-
lowed.
“Companies are feeling
they can maybe catch up
However, filling these new
roles may be challenging as 77
per cent of the companies cited
“availability of suitable/skilled
candidates” as the biggest challenge in attracting top talent,
found Hays.
Meeting retention challenges
The amount of Canadian
workers actively looking for
a new job has increased over
the last quarter, according to
Randstad, which surveyed at
least 400 people each from 29
countries. And no other country experienced greater movement than Canada.
“Leaders in talent management, what they’re also starting to recognize is that there
is going to be a gap between
retention and acquisition of
talent, so they’ve got to ensure
they’ve got both practices, that
succession planning is moving
forward in conjunction with a
very strong, fast, solid recruiting strategy,” said Stacy Parker,
executive vice-president of
marketing at Randstad Canada
in Toronto.
YOUR PASSPORT TO ADMINISTRATIVE SALARY TRENDS. To navigate future salary trends, calculate local salary ranges and ownload a FREE 2012 Salary Guide, visit officeteam.com/salarycentre.
Almost two-thirds (65 per
cent) of the respondents to
The Wynford Group is doing
a significant amount of work
for employers on various types
of incentive strategies, and not
just annual ones, said Evans.
That means looking at longer-
term incentives or a variety of
incentives so people are en-
couraged to stay more than one
year and get the big payout.
“(Employers) have had a
little more time to think about
how their compensation structures or incentives are set up
and, therefore, they are tying
them more clearly to performance measures, as happened
with executive compensation,”
she said.
“There’s more confidence,
companies are feeling that
they can maybe catch up or do
something special or provide
an extra bonus if they have to
to reward and retain employ-
ees. It’s really the retention
piece that’s the big one.”
The other key challenge will
be to use a total rewards pack-
age creatively, said Hunter.
“It puts more pressure on
employers to really rethink that
whole employment deal because as the economy continues to move and recover, there
are more options for people.
We all know people stay during
the bad times because there’s
no options.”
interfered
Continued from Page 5
or provide an extra bonus.”
vice-president, said the board.
Vale’s refusal to allow Veinot on its property negatively
impacted the union president
and other representatives by
depriving them of Veinot’s ability to help in the meetings on
its property, the board said. It
also made it difficult for union
members to access their vice-president while at work.
This was contrary to how
previous union vice-presidents
were treated and was a “cold
and hard” message that caused
“substantial interference in
both the administration of the
union and its representation of
employees.”
Even if the company was
concerned for the safety of em-
ployees, this shouldn’t affect
his ability to attend the meet-
ings, said the board.
Without a concrete reason that employee safety was
threatened, Vale couldn’t justify its banning of Veinot — he
had no history of workplace
violence and was acquitted of
the criminal harassment charges, said the court. It found Vale
interfered with union activities,
contrary to the Ontario Labour
Relations Act, and Vale was ordered to stop such interference
and allow Veinot on its property for union meetings.
For more information see:
•U.S.W. v. Vale Inco Ltd., 2011
CarswellOnt 14302 (Ont. Lab.
Rel. Board).
Jeffrey R. Smith is the editor
of Canadian Employment
Law Today, a publication
that looks at workplace law
from a business perspective.
For more information, visit
www.employmentlawtoday.
com.
1.800.804.8367
© 2012 Office Team. 0911-3404
