Ensuring Digital Signature Legality for Sick Leave Policy in India

How to eSign a document: digital signature legality for Sick Leave Policy in India

[Music] [Music] thank you hi there and welcome employment law show we are back in so are you it's good to have you on John scholes here with me Leora San Fiero employment lawyer of course and fearu to mark an LLP the most positively reviewed law firm in the country you want more information Beyond this show you can reach out first I'll give you a great website called pocketemployment lawyer.ca it's free it's Anonymous and rolled into that is the seventh calculator which we will refer to several times over the next half hour I guarantee that has been used by over 2 million people in this country over 2 million people have used the severance calculator it's free it's there any time for you to use a pocketemployment lawyer.ca and to reach lior and the team anytime 1855-821-5900 help employment lawyer.ca that's the email lots to get through in the show today five things employees should know about medical leaves that's in just a bit but we always started off power with the the case of the day the week that was a matter you've been dealing with yeah John I'm glad to be here and talk employment law you know you may be watching us at home right now on the weekend and you're thinking about going back to work after the weekend maybe you're a bit after apprehensive because you didn't have a good week you're worried about what to say to your employer maybe you're dealing with an ultimatum you have to respond to your employer well this is a good time right now we'll we'll cover things that you need to know chances are we'll touch on the issues that you've uh you've dealt with in the workplace and we'll give you some path towards a resolution of course if you're in a situation where you're not going back to work maybe you lost your job you learn a lot on this show about your legal rights and about what to do if you lost your job how to understand what you wrote it's so important we have all these rights in Canada when it comes to employment law when it comes to our workplace the problem is that most individuals and you know this John don't understand or appreciate just what those rights are well on this show we educate you we inform you we tell you what you need to know and we arm you with that information and of course if you always want to take that next step you want to have a private chat with me or an email exchange we'll give you that contact information so you can take that step but a week that was situation that came across my desk over the past few days so I suppose with a lady who called me after she lost her job she had worked for her employer for about two months or so just over two months she was let go she wasn't really given a reason and when she called me really what she was frustrated about is the fact that the company had not yet returned her personal property from the office where she worked she had contacted them she had some some personal items they didn't get back to her so she was frustrated understandably and she called me and she wanted to know how to deal with that so I told her what to do I told her give him a bit of time follow up with them I tell them when you want to come in and if they don't help you let me know and I'll get involved but as I was talking to her I found out a bit more about her situation so she hadn't worked there for two months she was let go they said it wasn't the best to fit and they didn't pay her any seven she didn't expect any separates because she only worked there for two months but here's the thing and I hope the regular viewers know where I'm going to go with this the fact that she only worked there for two months does not mean she doesn't get Severance John she was not on probation and the reason she wasn't on probation is she never signed an employment agreement that put her on probation probation is not automatic so even after two months of employment John she was owed Severance in fact she was owed up to three months pay now that's more than the length of time that she worked so I'm gonna help her get that she was absolutely dumbfounded to find out that she's owed that Severance but there's important reminders here number one you're not on probation automatically probation is only created if you sign an employment agreement that specifically puts you on probation otherwise you're not on probation even if you started a new job and beyond that short service employees are treated disproportionately better than longer service employees so you may have only worked for a company for a few months you could be owed a few months Severance you'd be surprised by how much your own so if you lose your job whether you work for a month or 50 years you have to give me a call you may be well surprised by what you wrote she was I'm going to help her get what she's owed why is it disproportionately better for short service employees why the number well the reason the purpose behind Severance is to help someone find another job while they're unemployed and just because you work somewhere for a short period of time doesn't mean you're going to find a job immediately in fact it may be harder for someone that worked for a short period of time to find another job because they're going to have to explain to a prospective employer why they only worked for a few months with their previous company and because of that short service employees get even more Severance or disproportionately greater Severance than longer service employees and I guess a disproportionate amount will increase with you know a tougher job if you've got an exclusive sort of career or if you're older for that matter I guess right yeah the harder it is for you to find another job maybe because it's your age maybe you have a medical condition maybe you're in an industry when there's just not a lot of jobs all those factors can significantly increase the amount of severance that you wrote so it's not a simple analysis of if I worked this long I get this much Severance we have to assess every situation that's why now ever ever signed that Severance letter without going through that analysis and as I mentioned off the top anytime pocketemployment lawyer.ca the seventh calculator is rolled into that you can make it a home game and find out how much 7g would possibly be owed you may not be getting let go at any time but just to give you a ballpark number of what you should uh should be looking at after that you can carry on and talk to lior one eight five five eight two one fifty nine hundred but employment lawyer.ca go to that website across the top you'll see the knowledge Center drop down menu media that's where you're going to find all our past radio shows and TV shows as well like this one and uh the radio still is good it's an hour long we do it across the country have for almost a decade we're getting a little old pal almost 10 years we've been doing that but we got a ton of calls on the shows every week and we cherry pick a few of them we played them back here and we dissect them a little bit so I want to do our first call for the day now they are this isn't for me this is for a friend of mine he was told a couple weeks ago that the guys that she works for she works in a sales position are retiring and they gave them 10 weeks notice where they're still working so she's worked there for 11 years she makes about anywhere from 50 to 60 000 and no talk of severance oh there's going to be talk of severance well I'm going to talk about Severance right now that's right so so let's first mention the fact that they gave her or are giving her 10 weeks notice of termination and that's important because those 10 weeks notice do count towards her Severance so if you give if you get advanced notice of the termination of your employment that period of time counts towards your Severance but the fact that it counts doesn't mean you're not owed much more than that so let's talk about the specific lady who we know worked there for about 11 years she's being let go with 10 weeks notice so the question is is 10 weeks enough rather than me tell you how much he's actually owed rather than just spoil the fun let's go to our Severance calculator you can find that at pocketemployment lawyer.ca and let's see what the actual amount is how much is really owed so we know that this lady you see that on the screen she's been there for 11 years she's making right around sixty thousand dollars she was let go with 10 weeks notice while you see on and the screen that what she's really owed is anywhere from nine to 12 months of severance 9 to 12 months now that's that less the 11 weeks the cheese received or the 10 weeks she's received that's still a lot of severance and I see this very often John someone receiving advanced notice of termination just not receiving enough so chances are if you're let go you're still much more than the notice you've received and the way to deal with that is simply to go to pocketemployment lawyer.ca and understand how much Severance Road of course it's free it's Anonymous so check it out it's the advanced I know it's kind of a rare thing I'm thinking that if I'm an employer and I need to let somebody go I don't want them just lurking around for you know six six months three months two months because they know the job's coming to an end maybe their performance will go down maybe they'll be bad enough in me I don't know you know you're right and it's exactly for those reasons that most employers don't really give advance notice they terminate and they pay Severance now I would say in about 20 25 percent of cases we see advanced notice but even in those situations chances are you're owed more notice than what you've been given and the employer has to make up the difference by way of severance in between this the radio show the TV shows lior I don't know when he has time to practice law but he does a lot of live streaming as well on Facebook and YouTube at St lawyers at St lawyers you want to follow along and contribute get a lot of questions we want to talk about a couple of them here in fact question number one for today's show lior is this what option does an hourly employee have if their manager keeps cutting down their usual hours is that just part of the job well the question is is it really part of the job now if you took a job as an hourly employee and your hours always have changed sometimes you get a bunch of hours sometimes you don't get a lot of hours and it changes from week to week then that's the term of your employment and there's not much you can do about that but if your schedule has been consistent you usually work the certain amount of hours and now your employer is starting to change that now they're saying well we're not going to give you the hours that you're used to now we're going to give you less hours well wait a second the employer then is changing the terms of employment and any time we think or we see a change of terms of employment we have to think constructive dismissal so yes if you're an hourly employee you are used to a certain number of hours now those hours are reduced you may be able to treat that as a termination as a constructive dismissal you don't have to accept it so a good place to start as always if that's what's happening to you give me a call let's talk about it and understand exactly what you're owed if it's not a major decrease in hours I guess you could say but it's enough where it's gonna it's gonna disrupt your income a little bit but you really like working there you like the boss you like everybody about the workplace can you say can we try this out temporarily for a little bit and see how it works but I'm not I'm not going to sign off on this completely yeah a good strategy in that situation will be in writing always in writing send an email a text message saying employer you've been changing my hours I'm gonna try it out and see how things go for the next three weeks and then we'll we'll discuss this so put that in writing because you don't want to be considered to have accepted this change permanently if you've you're considered to have accepted the change forever you can go back on it so if you're gonna try it out as John said if you take it for a little while but you're not sure if you want to accept it forever say that in an email by doing that you're going to preserve your rights and if this person is Let Go by this employer maybe they don't like that idea their Severance is going to be based on the previous job where they had all full hours exactly yes if your hours are reduced and you say no no that's constructive dismissal then that Severance is calculated on the hours the way they were before they were reduced very important short break we're going to take it out when we come back five things employees should know about medical leaves that is on the way but I'll give you a couple numbers and some emails as we as we head out for a short break one eight five five eight two one 5900 and his very capable team and help at employment lawyer.ca employment law show continues coming right back people think contractors aren't owed Severance employment lawyer.ca says that is a myth many contractors are actually employees and are entitled to full severance pay always check with the employment lawyer first at employmentlawyer.ca how do you force insurance companies to pay long-term disability claims insurance companies deny legitimate claims all the time they're playing the odds they know that most people are just going to walk away your insurer May ignore you they may even ignore your doctors but they can't ignore us we know how insurance companies work we know their weaknesses we know how to use the legal process to force them to pay you what you're owed go to disabilityrights.ca discover your rights fight back and get what your owed people think you are only owed two weeks pay when you lose your job employment lawyer.ca says that is a myth you may be owed much more than two weeks per year don't settle for less always check with the employment lawyer first at employment lawyer.ca [Music] and welcome back employment law show John schools with Leora sanfier of course employment lawyer Sam fewer to mark an LLP reach out anytime 1-855-821-5900 at employment lawyer.ca would be the website want to get into this pal this is five things employees should know about medical leaves number one these are all important by the way so make sure you listen closely is there a limiting amount of time an employee can take for a medical leave I get that asked all the time I need to be off is there a limit can I get in trouble if I'm off work for too long and the answer is no there is no limit as to how long you can be off work and it all all comes down to what your doctor says you can be off work for medical reasons for as long as your doctor says you need to be off maybe that's a week a month maybe it's a year maybe it's longer than that hopefully it's not but if it is that's okay if your doctor supports you and you have that doctor's note and what your employer cannot do is impose a time limit you can only be off for a month then we're not going to keep your job it doesn't work that way you can be off and not have to worry about losing your job for as long as you need to now what's important is to have that doctor's note so if your doctor's note initially said you're going to be need to be off for a month but you need to be off longer after a month you're not ready to come back to work you need a new doctor's note to tell your employer what that that's been extended now we're looking at more time so keep your employer updated with our doctor's note and if your employer does anything to you that would be illegal that could be a human rights violation that could be a wrongful dismissal you name it with that doctor's note you're protected and there isn't any time limit is there confusion sometimes people say yeah but Leroy I only have 10 sick days how can I be off for two months so 10 sick days means your employers decide that they're going to pay you for 10 days a year if you're sick and that's fine but what does it doesn't mean it doesn't say anything about how long you actually can be off work now the rest of the days may be unpaid but you could be off for a month for the whole year if that's what you need for medical reasons there may be other benefits that you'd be entitled to there could be short-term disability and long-term disability benefits through your employer's insurance policy you may qualify for government benefits like EI sickness benefits so the number of sick days that you have has absolutely nothing to do with the period of time you're allowed to be off from work next point is this does an employer have the right to ask an employee for detailed medical information another thing that I see happen all the time employers say well you told us you can't work but we need to know more we want to know what medical condition you have we want to know what medication you're taking what doctors you're seeing and we want to assess if we agree with that nonsense absolutely not your employer cannot demand to know what your medical condition is that is personal and private information but they're allowed to know and we call this prognosis they're allowed to know can you work and can you not how long are you going to be off work is there any accommodation that you need those are legitimate and important questions to ask what they cannot demand is to know what your medical condition is whether you're suffering from a bad back or a broken leg or from depression ultimately does not matter what matters is whether or not you can work so you're able to say no employer I gave you a doctor's note saying I cannot work that's all I'm going to give you if you want more information about the length of my absence I can give you that but I'm not going to tell you what the condition is what medication I'm taking that is offside and an employer is not allowed to punish you for refusing that information and it's always a bad idea to open that door by giving your employer medical information that they're not entitled to have we're talking about five key points employees need to know about medical leaves number three is this are there are employees obligated to to let their employees keep them informed as they go on through this medically date when they'll be back yeah it is an extremely good idea that you don't forget about your employer when you're off on a medical leave so as a rule of thumb I want to say that if you're going to be off for a while once a month contact your employer okay even if there's not anything major to tell them remind them that you're there send them an email or a text message saying just so you know employer I'm still working on getting better I'm still hoping to be back to work at some point and I'll be in touch that's it it's that one or two lines that's all you need and what that does is it prevents your employer from saying oh I hadn't heard from you in so many months I thought you resigned it allows you to maintain your rights that allows you to maintain your job and the right to your job so very good idea to stay in touch with your employer Point number four it'd be good to have your partner Savannah with a disability law show that we uh we run here as well but does an employee have to return to work if their disability benefits are cut off or denied while they're on that medical leave so you're you're off work you're sick your doctor says you can't work you've applied for disability and maybe you've received disability benefits and at some point your disability insurance says that's it we're going to cut you off we expect you to go back to work but all along you know you can't work your doctor agrees with you that you still can't work well what happens then well what happens is we have to separate the insurance issue and the work issue with respect to work all that matters is whether you have a doctor's note that says you cannot work your employer can't make you come back to work against your doctor's advice even if the insurance company has cut you off if your doctor says you are not able to work and you have that note and you provide your employer with that note that's all that matters and an employer that tries to punish you or threaten you or say you've resigned because you didn't come back to work contrary to your doctor's orders is doing something illegal again human rights violation wrongful dismissal you name it now with respect to the insurance issue the insurance is actually similar if your doctor says you should not be working you cannot work the insurance company should not be cutting you off if they are cutting you off before they should we need to deal with that you know as you know the adron at my firm we have a team that deals with these issues exclusively that's how often it happens unfortunately people getting cut off their disability coverage so if that happens to you the good news is it's not difficult to resolve we can either get you reinstated back on benefits or get your compensation so ultimately your doctor is what matters even in dealing with the insurance company one more point on this we're talking about things employees need to know when they're often the disability leave medical leave can an employee be replaced while on leave or even terminated when they return so the way this works is your employer has to essentially keep you on as an employee and when you're ready to come back to work try to bring you back now that assessment happens at the time you're ready to come back to work in the meantime while you're off yeah your employer is allowed to run its business and if that means bringing in someone to do the job that you used to do they can do that they can't fire you while you're on disability when you're ready to come back to work you tell your employer good news employer have been cleared I'm able to come back to work at that point your employer has to make all efforts to bring you back if it's possible they have to find your old position if it's available if it's not available find a similar position if there's legitimately no position they've tried they've looked there's just nothing there for you to do at that point and only in that point can they let you go with your full Severance too often though I've seen employers not try to bring someone back not making that effort or preferring to just kind of forget about them that's illegal if your employer is not trying to bring you back if they're not cooperating with your return to work from a disability leave that is illegal that's a problem we can deal with that if that happens to you get on the phone and give me a call and the accommodation threshold in that regards pretty high as well right they have to do quite a bit to make sure you can come back and uncomfortable for that matter so sometimes you can come back to work but you're not able to necessarily work the way you used to you need some help some accommodation maybe you need modified duties modified hours maybe you need some support in your job if you need that and your employer knows that from your doctor that employer has to make it happen they have to find a way to accommodate you and too often I see employers not wanting to do that's too much of a pain we don't want to only come back when you're able to do your job the way you used to that's illegal that's a human rights violation that duty to accommodate is one of the more important obligations that employers have so don't just accept your employer's refusal to accommodate let's talk about that if that's your situation I mentioned employment lawyer Dodge CA that website you can go there anytime to find a radio show across the country that you can tune into on a weekly basis phone call number two from our radio shows that's coming up right now I was working at another company I was approached by someone that I used to work for to come to work for him so I left that position and went to work for him due to unforeseen circumstances my daughter's been placed in my care and she's too young to be at home by herself they want me to start work at like late in the evening at five o'clock at night now if I say I can't do it and they fire me like where do I stand with that so right before this call we talked about the duty to accommodate and oftentimes the duty to accommodate happens in the context of a disability but another common situation is in the context of family obligations so we call this accommodation based on family status and what that means is your employer has to provide accommodation for you and support in situations where you need help to provide care for your children so maybe what that is is a situation where your child needs some medication you need to be home to give that or there's no one to care for them and you need some flexibility with your start hours or your finishing hours so that you can be there at home that accommodation has to happen if your employer refuses to accommodate and too often I've seen employers say that's your problem employee you figure that out well no the law makes it the employer's problem as well so in this particular situation if that employer won't accommodate Child Care obligations and there's really no way to provide child care without the employer's support that employer has to make it happen oftentimes a letter from me is all that's needed to get that fixed I've done this many times it works like a charm but yes your employer has to accommodate those family obligations that you have again that was a phone call from one of our radio shows we'll get to another one but first we got to take a short break right so we'll get to that in the meantime the number to recently or and crew one eight five five eight two one fifty nine hundred the email you can go to is help employment lawyer.ca to employment law show more coming up people think you have to sign back a severance offer by a deadline employment lawyer.ca says that is a myth deadlines are used as a pressure tactic make sure the offer is fair before you sign always check with the employment lawyer first at employment lawyer.ca can insurance companies deny long-term disability claims for mental illness when yourself a health disability Force you back to work if your doctor say you are not ready and you know you're not ready they cannot make you go back to work if you have a mental health disability and your claim is denied don't give up give us a call and let us fight for you go to disabilityrights.ca discover your rights fight back and get what you're owed people think you are towed severance pay if you are fired for a reason employment lawyer.ca says that is a myth most for cause terminations are false and you are still owed full Severance always check with the employment lawyer first at employmentlawyer.ca foreign [Music] welcome back employment live show a few minutes to go thank you for tuning in again this week I want to reach out to liorn is his awesome team best in the country one eight five five eight two one fifty nine hundred and help Employment lawyer.ca Plus the website built just for you free anonymous with the seventh calculator rolled into it pocketemployment lawyer.ca but Leora want to get to our third phone call for this show right now I worked for this company and I was using a big a piece of machinery and it broke down and so I worked for them for like 22 years and they wanted me to pay for it so then they fired me who I calculate what they owe me and uh you were there 20 years I think you said is that right 22 years I'm a machine operator hi and electronic machine that I was using and how old are you I'm 48. You Break It You Fix It Well nothing you buy it break it you buy it maybe maybe you can offer to buy them exactly so this actually happens very often if you think about it that you're working on a machine some piece of equipment and it breaks maybe you even make a mistake okay and and as a result of that it breaks does that mean that you're on the hook for it and the answer no if it's if it's not something you did deliberately if it's an a natural normal accident in the course of business you don't have the legal obligation to pay for it now if you did something you weren't supposed to do with the machine and you know you you knew the machine is not meant for this particular purpose and you did it anyway and we told you and you knew it yeah then that's a problem you may have to pay for it and then you could even be disciplined for for not following uh procedure but in most cases if it's an honest mistake something happened then you can't be really penalized for it and you certainly can't be fired for cause in that situation so as long as this is an honest mistake there is no world where this would be a termination for cause and I want to all to remember how difficult it is to terminate for cause let's say he made a mistake let's say he actually did something he wasn't supposed to Let's assume that that's still not cause in most cases it would have to be pretty bad pretty extreme for that is a one incident to because he would have almost had to deliberately damage this machine for that to be caused so because it's not cause he's let go he is owed his full Severance so the next question we know that how much Severance does he get for that we're going to go back again and use our Severance calculator we're going to go very quickly to pocketemployment lawyer.ca we're going to use that calculator plug this information in and actually see what this person has owed so he's been there for 22 years he's 48 years old he operates a machine he hasn't been given any Severance because his employer says oh we have cause because you made a mistake with the machine not cause it's a wrongful dismissal instead and we see in the bottom there that what he's owed is right around 18 months of reverence 18 months you know John I did some calculation that's it's a salary of sixty thousand dollars that's right around ninety thousand dollars extra that he has owed that's why it's so important to give me a call if you lose your job even faster than that to go to pocketemployment lawyer.ca to understand what your entitlements are it's free it's Anonymous there's no names you have to put in there you don't have to put in your phone number it's there for your information so always the first place you go to if you lose your job whether it's because you did something wrong or it's a restructuring you always go to pocketemployment lawyer.ca we have time for one more question this is going to come from terminationquestions.com again free and you can contribute to the show as well through that in a verbal agreement my boss stated I would be promoted months went by nothing changed and after communicating with my concerns I was told my chronic health problems prevented the promotion from going through is this considered discriminatory so if you're not promoted because of your age or your medical condition that's illegal you don't need to be a legal expert to understand that that you cannot be not promoted you cannot be penalized you cannot be treated differently because you have a medical condition that's the easy to say that's a human rights violation the problem here I suspect is different than that I always say document everything and the reason I say that is I expect some people may not tell the truth if someone screwed up you can expect that they won't tell the truth so how do we deal with that as we document things so why would I have told this person to do if you're first of all if you're promised a promotion document that send an email to the boss saying boss confirming today you told me that I'm gonna I can expect a promotion in January of next year you've just documented that if your employer then says that you were not going to give you a promotion because of your medical condition go back to your office immediately send an email or a text message to your employer employer confirming today you told me that because of my medical condition you're not going to give me this promotion you promised by documenting that now you have legal recourse you can pursue a human rights case you can pursue a wrongful dismissal case a constructive dismissal case so always always always a good idea to document everything that you can if you wish something was in writing you put it in writing yourself you don't need the company to say anything it doesn't matter if the company agrees you just do that and you protect your rights by doing that because you always say the chances are they're not going to admit to it or something of to this degree do you really think that employer is going to admit yes we committed a human rights violation probably not chances are that's why you don't give them that opportunity you do what you need to to document things so that when you need it that information is right there again that question came from termination questions.com which you can use anytime and that'll be it for another show join us next time and feel free to email and join one of our radio shows as well you make it on the air right one eight five five eight two one 5900 the number to reach Leo and his team help at employment lawyer.ca and then of course pocketinpointed lawyer.ca free and Anonymous with the seventh pay calculator as well so check that out we'll catch you next time if you play the last show thank you