Unlocking the Power of Digital Signature Legality for Leave of Absence Agreement in Canada

How to eSign a document: digital signature legality for Leave of Absence Agreement in Canada

[Music] [Music] well hello there and welcome to the Employment Law Show John Scoles and Lee or Sam whew we are back to fill your head full of useful knowledge we are talking about your employment rights and all that stuff so let's get right into it shall we Li are all kinds of things to talk about today what you need to know about medical leaves this is very important stuff for a lot of people and quite often for quite a lengthy time too so we'll get into that just a bit as well pocket employment lawyer pocket employment lawyer dot see details on that on the way as well this is something very cool you can actually could check out in the meantime oh we sit here idly chat between between the two of us shall we but first my friend week that was what he got for me today exactly it was a really interesting week a lot of people that that saw the show very recently called me and it triggered something in them it raised questions or where they maybe realized wait a second I thought my prom is just something I had to live with and they start the show and they realize well maybe not maybe there is a solution and guess what there was a solution and that is exactly what I'm here to preach what I'm here to say if you have a workplace problem if your boss did something or said something maybe it wasn't a good week something happened in the workplace or you've got some bad news about your job there's almost always something you can do about it to make your situation better so that's what we're here to talk about on this show every single week or if you want to talk to me privately if you want to talk about your specific situation and want to know whether what happened to you is right and what to do about it call me we'll give you my contact information or email happy to correspond happy to chat I do this every day all day so there's no bad questions there's only answer there's only solutions but week there was a situation that came across my desk just over the past few days I spoke with the gentleman that worked in a sales position he was a hundred percent commission and you know one of the the most sacred thing for salespeople their own Commission is you don't mess with their Commission structure you just don't because that's their livelihood well this particular employee or salesperson found himself in the situation where the company changed very recently the the at the end of the fiscal they changed the Commission structure so instead of earning this much percentage for these types of products the percentages were all changed the the products were changed the margins were changed it was a big change well the problem for that was with that was he said the now is result of these changes I'm gonna make less money and I said well let's see first of all if that's the case so when I first spoke we spoke with him I told him let's try it for a month or two let's see how this actually impacts you maybe you're wrong maybe it's not really gonna impact your compensation well after about 60 days he calls me he says I've got my first two checks I'm making 35% almost 40% less than what I was making before so I said to him no that is a constructive dismissal you cannot have that happen to you your employer changed the terms of employment change the way you earn your income this gives compensation or commission structure so he now doesn't have to accept that he can treat his employment as being terminated and leave with his full severance so remember I constructive dismissal can happen in a number of ways anytime your terms of employment have been changed it's a constructive dismissal or absolutely can be but the big one kind of the Holy Grail is you can't change someone's compensation if the employer changes your compensation maybe it's indirectly maybe they say from now on we're gonna not give bonuses or from now on you're not gonna earn any more overtime so your compensation even gets changed indirectly that is a constructive dismissal and it doesn't have to be a 40% reduction even a 5% or more reduction in Paikin absolutely and easily result in a constructive dismissal if you're ever in that situation before you just continue working before you be the good soldier and kind of take one for the team you need to stand up for your rights if you let your employer change your compensation one time John you may have given them the right to do it again and the next time they do that you may be stuck don't let that happen reach out to me you want to reach out simple one eighty five five eight to one fifty nine hundred help at employment lawyer dot CA for the for the people that are in sales possibly watching this today and they're thinking okay I get my severance say the calculator says I get twelve months severance or eight months severance sales people often have fluctuating paychecks how do you calculate severance for sales because I don't own a straight salary yeah yeah so if you're earning $60,000 we know what you're earning on every check right but if you're paid changes sometimes it's more sometimes it's less it's fluctuates it's just as easy we simply look at an average depending how long you work for the company we may look at a one-year or two or even a three-year average and use that figure so if on average you're making 60,000 some months it could be thirty someone's it could be a hundred but on average if it's sixty is an example we will use that figure so that's also important for people that earn salary plus commissions many cases when the company pays severance they'll try to calculate it just on the salary that's wrong all components of your compensation have to be included as part of your severance salary bonus benefits commissions car allowance pension you name it it all has to be included we'll get to our phone call first phone call our live employment law Show on radio if you haven't caught that you can do some searching and listen back to some old shows as well but we take the good phone calls all the good phone calls but the interesting phone calls from that show we play they're all good they're all good they're all good if you've called in my apologies but we play the back in this show when we talk about a first call for this show is right now I've been working for 23 years and I'm the office manager of payroll accounts payable receivable all that and they're outsourcing do it at another location within a couple of months I won't have a job and I was told that they want to keep me on part-time but now it looks like they're just eliminating up completely and I'm sort of on kind of waiting to see what's been happen how old are you currently exceed it there you go Wow so so she's been there for 23 years he's 66 years old and now she's worried about her job security well there's good news and there's bad news the bad news is that there's not much that she can do about avoiding this happening if the company has decided to let her go or or to outsource her position it's now it may be unfair it may not be a nice thing to do right it probably isn't but legally speaking they can do that so even though you know why should she lose her job it's unfortunate but they can do that so she can avoid that what she can do is absolutely make sure that when and if this happens she gets everything that she's owed she doesn't need to do anything right now she doesn't need to proactively deal with this at some point the company's gonna let her go that she doesn't have a job if that's the case at that time they have to pay her her full severance I can tell you that given her age and then the fact that she's been there for three years she'll be looking at two years pay two years pays what she's gonna be out here so if you're ever in that situation you know that the the axe is gonna fall you're gonna lose your job to continue working do your job to the best of your ability there's nothing that you need to do preemptively but when that axe does fall when you do lose your job and you're handed that severance letter that's when you'd come and go into action that's when you have to make sure that you get what your because most people don't most people are offered a lot less because the company hopes that they won't know any better so no you get your severance and in this situation she should wait get her severance for her two years paid John it's smart not to wallow and the reason why I got let go or or feel shame about it just worry about the back and worry about this on the back end most people think a lot of proud in their sight in their job and they don't want to lose your job they they work hard there there's a sense of accomplishment a sense of identity that comes with your job but I get from a legal standpoint then sometimes the law can be fairly cold from a legal standpoint your employer can let you go even if you've done nothing wrong even if you worked your butt off for all these years they can let you go it comes down to seven so that's why we focus on severance here on the show because from a legal standpoint that is what matters not the reason not whether the company is doing it right or whether they they have a good reason to let you go it's what are you paid and how much severance do you get you know part of the show that we do here each week is making you know navigating work life simpler we do that another great way is a pocket employment lawyer pocket employment lawyer dot C it gives us some details on it Phil so I'm an employment lawyer I answer questions all the time but I know there's so many people out there still that have questions that maybe are hesitating they don't know if they should call maybe they're like I don't know if I want to talk to a lawyer well don't worry about it before you even call a lawyer you can go to a tool that I just created pocket employment lawyer dot CA I'll say it again it's pocket employment lawyer dot CA it's a tool that allows you to get specific advice for your situation we've used technology to make this happen so whether to find out if you've been constructively dismissed we talked about that on the show whether the company had just caused and let you go how much severance do you get if you are an employee or an independent contractor if you've had your human rights violated if you've been a victim of discrimination all those things you can find out specifically you go to pocket employment lawyer dossier you answer some questions and it's going to tell you yes you've been constructively dismissed no you haven't yes you've been discriminated against no you haven't there's cause there isn't check it out it's free it's a hundred percent free I believe in people having access to information so I'd be talking from both sides of my mouth if I said I'm gonna charge you for it so pocket employment lawyer dossier is free it's anonymous you don't have to put in your information or the company's information you have that knowledge now it's right there in your hand check out pocket employment lawyer dot CA and if you want to give me some feedback love to hear from it again you said free you said anonymous all these good things that sounds very familiar you'll remember severance pay calculator calm and that's nicely embedded right inside pocket employment lawyer dot CA if you want to check it out if you ever need it at anytime want to get to an example here as we go in and kind of switch focus to say the severance pay calculator Liara ads follow sixty one-year-old Nick worked for a computer manufacturing firm for the past 28 years most recently in a supervisor role he was let go on Friday HR total ninety years old twenty six weeks severance pay still do that max by the way that is the max and that he has three days to accept the offer is he owed more so this is Rialto he's only got three days I'll talk fast John no worries so this is actually a true story the only thing we've changed this in air is the name that's it everything else here is factual and and we pick this not because there's unusual we pick this one because it's so common I I get these types of scenarios these types of calls or emails several times a day every single day in weekends as well so let's break this down so he's been there for all these years these are a lot more than 26 weeks pay and if there's a misconception that only certain people get severance all that is wrong so let's take his information let's plug that into severance pay calculator calm you can also reach it through pocket employment lawyers' ei and let's see how much our friend Nick is actually owed so we know that Nick is a supervisor he's been there for 28 years that's a long time 61 years old and company says 26 weeks is all you get and you better sign this within three days except Nick went through severance pay calculator calm or or pocket employment law lawyer dossier and found that well wait a second you can see that on the screen twenty-four months pay is what I'm owed forget about 26 weeks 24 months pay depending on his compensation level that can easily be a six-figure difference so that's why it's so important to go to pocket employment lawyer Dodd say to find that your rights especially if you lost your job do not accept less do not believe your employer telling you that you're only owed this much and the worst thing you can ever do is be concerned about that deadline and say pressure tactic it's all it is it's there to make you feel you have something to lose so you have my permission I'm on TV now sorry I can't deny this I want to be saying you can ignore that deadline instead get advice go to pocket employment lawyer dot CA don't sign before you do you've got two years yeah two years legal rights not only do they not expire in three days they don't expire for a full two years now I'm not saying way two years in fact I think that would be a bad idea to wait two years but if you need four five six ten days to get advice to get your head on straight please do that do not worry about that deadline again pocket employment lawyer dot C is where you find that information and write the tops of severance pay calculators well everything you need to know about medical leaves we mentioned that off the top of the show we will get to that after a short break it is on the way right here and the employment law so stick around you lost your job they only gave you two weeks of severance per year worked but where can you find out what you're really owed I'm going to severance pay calculator comm find out how much you wrote right now severance pay calculator calm you've been denied long term disability you think you're powerless but you have a lot more power than you think I'll tell you a secret it's a numbers game for the insurance company they're betting on you walking away from money that they owe you don't make that mistake we resolve disability claims all the time we force insurance to pay what they owe we're in your corner call Savannah and his team one eighty five five eight to one fifty nine hundred or go to Disability Rights dot CA you lost your job they said they had a good reason but you think you've been wrongfully dismissed now what are you going to do I'm going to employment lawyer dot CA always check with the employment lawyer first at employment lawyer dot CA [Music] [Music] all right welcome back the Employment Law show we always take a topic each week and dissect Akande in some key points and whittled down to the good stuff so we're gonna do that right now Lior this week it is everything you need to know about medical leaves a lot of people wondering up is this a lot of people are on medical leaves as well short and long right and it's always an uncomfortable situation for someone when they have to go out of medical leave they're worried about their job they're worried about security what happens when I'm ready to come back to work what happens if I'm coming back to work and I'm not a hundred percent healthy so we want to talk about all those things so that you know what is your rights if you can't work if something's intervene an accident an injury a medical condition then now takes you out of work because guess what John the lost quite good there there's a lot of protections so we want to explain what those are first point is this how long can someone actually be away from work for a medical reason so there's no time limit you can be off work as long as you need to so long as you have a doctor backing you up corroborating that you cannot work so in some situations a it's not a big deal maybe I had a surgery I'll be gone for a couple of days and then I'm back to work great in other situations it could be extended it could be days weeks months even longer than that and you are allowed to be off work you have not lost your job you have not been considered to be let go to resigned or terminated you continue to be an employee you can be off work as long as you need to you need to have that doctor's note if a doctor says you cannot work that's that's it you you then get that time off for as long as you need if I take this from the angle of an employer am I allowed to ask for medical information about the employee that's off like diagnosis stuff like that an employer is allowed to ask certain questions and employers allowed to find out essentially when is this person going to be able to come back to work or do we have any information and an update on that so they can ask you know when are you gonna get an update or when are you able to come back to work they can also ask did you have any limitations or can you do the job without limitations we call that prognosis so your employer can ask for prognosis what they cannot do they cannot ask information about your diagnosis what is the condition what treatment you're getting what medication are you on none of that are they allowed to know why because that's private that's personal and it's irrelevant whether you're suffering from a herniated disc or you anxiety and depression it doesn't change the fact that you cannot work what matters is can you work can you not work and if your employer asks you for that personal information you absolutely can and you should say no they cannot demand it you cannot get punished in any way for refusing to provide that so prognosis okay diagnosis absolutely not talking about all the important points you need to know about medical leaves this one is another big one as well what happens to an employee's job while they're on the medical leave and should they or do they have to update their boss or their employer Azarath updates so you remain employed you still are an employee while you're on a medical leave even if it's a long medical leave not only that John your time on a medical leave counts towards your seniority so if you work for a company for three years and now you've been off for the last year on a medical leave you're now a four year employee so that time counts so at some point down the road if you are let go and you get severance full time is gonna is going to count it's always a good idea to stay up there to keep your employment updated or stay in touch with your employer while you're on medical leave you don't want to forget about your employer and you don't want your employer to forget about you so every once in a while if you're on a long medical leave send a note telling them I'm working on getting better send an email maybe provide an updated doctor's note that helps preserve your rights so that your employer can't say or I assumed you weren't coming back always a good idea to stay in touch with your employer what does an employee do if they're not approved for disability or Ltd long term disability or in that matter their claim is cut off while they're on one so a lot of employers provide long term disability plan or short term disability plant for their employees and it's there to compensate the employee while they cannot work well unfortunately many employees are going to find themselves in a situation where the insurance company either doesn't approve them or cuts them off the disability coverage before they're ready to come back to work well unfortunately this is done to frustrate the individual insurance companies often hope that by cutting you off you'll give up you won't apply then they'll save a lot of money well that's wrong that's illegal so if your employer or your insurance company cuts you off disability coverage give us a call we have a whole team at the law firm dealing just with this we can deal with that company it's not that difficult and of course remember even if you have been caught off disability it does not mean that your employer can demand you come back to work and as long as you have a doctor's note saying you cannot work that's it your employer can not give you a hard time cannot doubt you question you ask for another opinion you can be off as long as you need to be when an employee is ready to come back to work what do they have to do automatically so we talked about the fact that the medical leave starts with the doctor's note right well it also ends with the doctor's note so if you're ready to come back to work ideal you want to have a doctor's note clearing you to come back to work saying yes this person can go back to work and you provide that to your employer and if your employer refuses to allow that that's that that could be a huge problem for the employer the other thing we want the doctor's note to say is to outline if you need any accommodation maybe you need modified duties or modified hours because the employer has to accommodate so give that note to the employer telling them you can come back to work what limitations you have and that switches the obligation on the employer to make all reasonable offers or efforts to take you back in to accommodate you wait you did mention it there and that's the last point what if you want to come back here you're ready to come back and the employer says you know what other your jobs vaporized so I don't want to take you back I got someone else well an employer has to make all reasonable efforts to take you back in some situations that's not possible if it isn't possible then you are owed your severance but remember your employer cannot simply say well you've been gone too long we don't even want to talk to you that is a human rights violation not to mention potentially a wrongful dismissal they have to make all reasonable efforts to look for a job even if your job doesn't exist they have to see if they can find something similar it's only once they've gone through that exercise and and there's nothing legitimately there then they can consider terminating you but with your full severance well it bounced over to another phone call from our live employment law show a radio show so we'll get to that phone call number two for today working as a courier as a dependent contractor and what happened was I ended up getting fired for just telling other drivers that he wasn't paying us our gas allowance and I wanted that cause of determination conversation were you working full time hours yeah for him your ass and how old are you 46 yeah well John this is a very common miss class a' fication situation he's working full-time hours for one company for a year and a half what do we call that John we call that wrong and we call that employment exactly he's an employee he's not a contractor not a contractor and this is such a common situation he says there's a courier I've seen this so many times with couriers but I've seen it with truck drivers hairstylist IT professionals with so many people that they're misclassified he is an employee okay as simple as that now by the way pocket employment lawyer Darcy would have allowed him to find out in his specific situation whether he's really an employee or contractor you should check it out for yourself so we know he's an employee he's been misclassified very common which means he's out severance so let's go to our friend the pocket employment lawyer dossier which which calculates severance and let's see how much he's actually owed so he's we know he's a courier he's been there for a year and a half he said he's 46 years old because he's an employee because he's not an independent contractor he's easily owed 3 months severance three months pay so this is a very common situation it may be your situation you're watching us right now thinking wait a second are you telling me I'm not really an independent contractor yeah that's exactly what I'm saying you are probably an employee if you lost that job of yours you're gonna be out seventh like an employee don't believe me go to pocket employment lawyers' ei and check it out for yourself because a lot of employees are gonna say why I agreed with my employer we both signed a contract saying I'm an independent contractor that must hold water it doesn't right really you know the reality on the ground is all the matters you can sign a piece of paper saying that you're the Prime Minister of Russia that doesn't make me make you that right it's the same thing if you're in look like an employee and you act like an employee you are an employee even if you sign a piece of paper that says something else it doesn't matter how you pay your taxes doesn't matter even if you have your own incorporated company the law may absolutely still consider you to be an employee coming up here the legalities after being fired for a customer complaint that is on the way stick around for it here on the Employment Law Show you were being harassed and would you said something about it you're the one who lost your job now what are you gonna do I'm going to employment lawyer CA always check with the employment lawyer first at employment lawyer dot CA insurance companies deny long term disability claims all the time they give lots of excuses don't give up I seen at all they've ignored your doctors they've ignored you you're angry and you're frustrated but there's hope we resolve disability claims all the time we force insurers to pay what they owe we're in your corner call Savannah and his team one eight five five eight two one fifty nine hundred or go to Disability Rights dot CA you thought you had a secure job you didn't see it coming now what do you do I'm going to employment lawyer CA always check with the employment lawyer first at employment lawyer dot CA [Music] [Music] and welcome back to the Employment Law Show John Scoles Lior Sam fury you know we take a ton of phone calls from our live radio show of the employment law show on radio we like to get to them and I septon because we do it all show long and radio was good to nail down and a couple of specific ones that bring some points to the to the viewer to let them know what's going on so this is call number three i think--for for today's show pal I was recently temporary laid off and I was just wondering if they'd give me a thirteen week period and I was wondering if I'm able to some perseverate how long have you worked for the company seven-year the old temporary layoff we've talked about this before on the show and I still get calls like that all the time so let's make it very clear that a temporary layoff is actually illegal in most cases by illegal what I mean is the employer doesn't have a right to lay you off temporarily they don't and if they lay you off temporarily you have a choice you can accept that layoff and sit at home and if they call you back go back or you can treat that as a termination right now and get your severance not 13 weeks from now not 35 weeks from now now so that's what I told this person which you call us on the radio you know you don't have to accept this you can treat that as a termination now so the question is how much severance is shield well let's say again go to pocket employment lawyers' ei or same as severance pay calculator comm and let's plug her information in to see what she'd be owed so I assume let's let's pick a position let's say she's in sales seven years of employment we know let's assume she's in her 50s she was offered no severance because her employer said she's quote-unquote on a temporary Liv except John severance pay calculator calm you see that on the screen says she's owed eight months pay eight months pay that's how easy it is to use and remember when it comes to temporary layoffs they're illegal your employer does not have a right unless of course you've given them the right to do it by allowing it to happen before that's why if you've been laid off temporarily don't let that happen don't accept it and stay home because guess what if you do that and you end up coming back to work the company can do it again and again and again and then you're stuck you know it's it's funny when we talk about temporary layoffs in the show and and you've made this comparison saying you know if you walked up to the same employee and said you know how about I dock your pay by 50 percent for 13 now get out of town well how would I take a hundred percent of your pay for 13 weeks that's what a layoff that is exactly what a temporary layoff is that's why it's illegal that's that's there's no right like I just like you couldn't tell your employer employer I decided for the next 13 weeks you pay me double I mean well if you can't do that your employer can't reduce your pay to zero for 13 weeks or for eight weeks or for any other period of time it's a termination termination questions com that's a resource for you to answer ask questions and Leo and his team answer them and give you the information you're looking for here's the first one for the show today says I was dismissed from my job of four years after one single customer complaint one single customer complaint this was the first complaint I've ever been aware of and are no complaints on my employee file were they legally allowed to fire me so obviously you know an employer should expect good performance for them it's from its employees and and you know if you do a good job hopefully there's no complaints but so let's look at it from the employers best case scenario that this employee made a mistake it was a whatever some sort of an error and they got a legitimate complaint but that's not the real issue the real issue is is that even if it happened is it bad enough to be allowed to allow the employer to let them go for cause John it's not even close the fact that this person may have done something wrong maybe they did maybe they didn't but even if they did it does not mean that it rises to the level of cause it's so difficult to terminate someone's employment for cause it's reserved for the worst offenders the worst offenders so now if this person had several customer complaints that she was warned and she didn't get better she was warned again well at some point that employer may say well there's nothing else I can do with you I'm gonna let you go for cause but if this is a one time thing where a first complaint she cannot be let go for cars that would be a wrongful dismissal the flip side of that though John is her employer is allowed to let her go but they'd have to pay for severance so even though as I said it's not a bet that's not that bad if there's one complaint if her employer still wants her gone they would have to pay full severance otherwise it's a wrongful dismissal they would have to build up you know build up wrongdoings before they can let her go right yes it's not history it's not easy to let someone go for cars so if you want to as the employer you have to put in the work you have build up that case you have to have warnings you have to tap potentially a suspension on record you have to show that you've tried to do something other than just terminate someone for cause in my experience most employers jump the gun they say yeah you did something wrong therefore it's cause it's not that one does not equate to the other and if your employer jumps the gun like most do that's a wrongful dismissal you could be a significant compensation you have to reach out to me good way to wrap it up for another show again if you haven't checked it out yet pocket employment lawyers' a through that you can access a severance pay calculator one eighty five five eight to one fifty nine hundred is a phone number and quite simply employment lawyer CA to reach out as well thank you so much for joining us we'll see you next time right here on the employment logical closed captioning of this program is brought to you in part by severance pay calculator comm find out how much you are owed right now severance pay calculator comm you lost your job they said they had a good reason but you think you've been wrongfully dismissed now what are you going to do I'm going to employment lawyer dot CA always check with the employment lawyer first at employment lawyer dot CA