Newsletter
January 2006
Spotlight: Harold's Change Dilemma
Harold Kenny was the driving force behind the redevelopment of a contaminated former railway site in downtown Moncton. But how was he going to get all the different players in this complex change scenario marching in the right direction? Learn how stakeholder engagement can really make change happen – in Harold’s case, years ahead of schedule and millions under budget. ...more
This Issue:
- Employment law primer: Barrister and IRC Dispute Resolution coach Carol MacKillop asks what you would do in the unsettling case of the sales rep who left with something ...more
- Prized Subscriber: Here's who won our contest and gets a boost over the leadership gap ...more
- Free Download: Learn how HRM and union membership link to an employee’s intention to quit ...more
- Spotlight: A sublime strategy for stakeholder engagement ...more
Employment law primer: the not-so-strange case of the sales rep who left with something
Barrister Carol MacKillop, a coach on IRC’s Dispute Resolution program, provided an excellent crash course on labour and employment law at the Queen’s School of Policy Studies recently. She shared the following real-life example from her practice, in which she represents corporations and employers. What would you do as an employer if this happened to you?
The scenario:
You have a software business in a competitive environment. You started 20 years ago on your own, and you were smart and lucky. Now you have 40 employees, have southern Ontario covered, and are doing well. Your salespeople are essential, and to help them sell, you provide lots of information about your company. They know all about your clients, have their phone numbers, etc. A condition of employment for salespeople is that all contact information is confidential and they can’t tell anyone or take it if they leave.
One day Mary, a top salesperson, comes in and gives you two weeks’ notice. You are sad as she’s a good salesperson who is responsible for three counties. She knows a lot about your business and customers. So you ask, “Are you going to the competition?” She says no. So you begin searching for someone else. On the last day that she works, you find out email correspondence has been taking place between her and your direct competitor for the past three months. Then you find out one email had an attachment that is a confidential customer list. And, you discover, for the past two weeks she has been working with the competition, and has sold $15,000-worth of that competitor’s version of your product to your customers!
If this keeps up, it will wipe out your business in her area. What do you do?
The response:
“Unfortunately if you go to court you are not going to get in front of a judge for two or three years, and by then, it’s too late. Courts move slowly, but in certain circumstances, they can move very fast to try to get an injunction. The court is available for these types of emergency type situations, to help you get your customer list back, and to stop Mary from contacting your customers.
You need to know there are two levels of law at work here. Even if the employer didn’t say the information is confidential, there is a common law obligation to confidentiality that’s been built by judge-made law because there is recognition that senior people have access to information they should not be able to unfairly use.
This is an area where contract law and common law work together. Confidentiality for senior people is required even if it is not in the employment agreement.
Having clear policies in place is important, however. If everyone knows there is a confidentiality agreement, it makes it a much cleaner case.”
Prized Subscriber
Congratulations to Erika Abonyi, who won a copy of The Leadership Gap: Building Leadership Capacity for Competitive Advantage, in our previous e-newsletter contest.
Free Download: “The Effects of Human Resource Management and Union Member Status on Employees’ Intentions to Quit”
Download a paper in which Lisa Hughes shares surprising findings on “quit intentions” - of interest to employers and unions alike ...more
Spotlight: Harold's Change Dilemma
During IRC’s popular Change Management program last June, real estate and environmental consultant Harold Kenny shared his unique, sometimes unorthodox thoughts about how stakeholder communications can help make your change happen - in his case, years ahead of schedule and millions under budget. Here’s what Harold has to say about engaging stakeholders so that the sticks stay out of your wheels, and change keeps rolling smoothly forward.
Harold Kenny learned a lot about stakeholder communications while leading the reclamation of a contaminated former CN railway site in downtown Moncton, NB. As general manager of a Canada Lands Company (CLC) project to transform the former train repair site into a residential, business and recreational development, he found himself the central player in a complex change scenario with many different stakeholders.
In 1995 when responsibility for the site was given to CLC - a Crown Corporation responsible for making dormant land productive - the 280-acre former CN railway shops had been sitting vacant, surrounded by barbed wire, for a decade.
Harold’s was no easy task. Regulatory authorities, understandably, were keeping close tabs on the cleanup. As well, politicians and local people – who had strong feelings around the CN railway shops – had to be brought onside.
Volatile emotions had swirled around the shops since the mid-80s, when their closure meant layoffs for 2,500 people. It was a huge economic blow to the local economy, which had been dominated for 90 years by the railway, the single largest employer in Moncton’s history.
As well, many local people who had worked there felt guilty that perhaps they had contributed to the pollution. Citizens feared that potentially toxic dust would blow into their neighbourhoods, and about the costs of a cleanup. Wild stories began to circulate. “At one point, there was even a rumour that Jimmy Hoffa was buried there,” Harold recalls with a laugh.
It was clear that two things had to happen at once: a large environmental cleanup, and a change in public perceptions about the decontamination of the land. Harold had to secure regulatory cooperation and local buy-in – quickly.
In accomplishing this, Harold says he learned many important lessons about what really works in communicating with stakeholders.
To read the full Spotlight article, go to: http://www.industrialrelationscentre.com/change-management/articles/harolds-change-dilemma.htm
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