[LINK] "Lessons from the Jian Ghomeshi case: ‘There is nowhere to hide’"

[rfmcdonald]

Employment lawyer Howard Levitt writes in the Financial Post about eight lessons to take from the Jian Ghomeshi affair. The man's challenges to the CBC seem quite doomed, honestly.

1. Pierre Trudeau was wrong. There is nowhere to hide, no respite removed from your employer’s potential scrutiny. Not even the nation’s bedrooms. Off-duty, on-duty, at work, at a friend’s, anywhere. If your conduct significantly damages your employer’s brand, it is cause for your discharge without compensation. This is generally more true for CEOs or anchors than of anonymous administrative clerks.

But they too are not immune. When Philip Kelly, a materials manager at Linamar, was charged (but not convicted) of possession of child pornography in his home, Linamar decided that that presented a risk to its reputation and promptly fired him for cause. He sued for wrongful dismissal, claiming that this had nothing to do with his employment. He lost, ending up not only without compensation but paying his employer’s lawyer’s fees, in addition to his own.

The lesson: Canadian employees should assume, at all times, that their conduct anywhere might become fodder for their employer and conduct themselves accordingly.

I have always advised not to post anything on social media, at whatever age, that you would not like seen by a future employer. The cautionary tale of Ghomeshi is that that this caution must extend beyond what you post, extending to everything that you do which can be related by others or surreptitiously recorded.