Techopia: The ascent of Assent

DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

If Shopify was Ottawa’s tech rocket ship in the early days of the pandemic, supplychain software maker Assent was, in the words of chief executive Andrew Waitman, “Steady Eddy.”

As e-commerce boomed in a work-fromhome world, Shopify’s valuation soared. Meanwhile, Assent kept plugging away, backed by $160 million in venture capital it raised in 2018 that helped it weather the prevailing economic uncertainty as COVID-19 swept across the globe.

Two-plus years later, Assent is stronger than ever. Recently, the local firm previously known as Assent Compliance reached a major milestone: it hit the 1,000-employee mark, up from 800 at the start of the year.

For chief executive Andrew Waitman, Assent’s rapid growth over the past couple of years is more proof that his company’s platform is perfectly positioned for a world in which supply-chain issues are on seemingly every C-suite leader’s mind.

“We’re a trailblazer,” he says.

But in the spring of 2020, Assent’s prospects weren’t nearly as certain. Unsure how things would play out in the early going of the pandemic, the company cut 10 per cent of its 500-person workforce, including a few senior executives.

But what could have been a catastrophic disruption to Assent’s business ended up being a temporary blip.

The firm began hiring again, and by early 2021 it had 600 employees. In January, Assent – which helps some of the world’s largest manufacturers ensure their suppliers are complying with an ever-growing list of government laws and regulations on everything from human rights to health and safety standards – landed US$350 million in fresh capital in a deal that valued the company at more than US$1 billion.

“One of the insights is, don’t overreact,” Waitman now says.

Today, Assent’s ascent is showing no signs of slowing down. Waitman says the company is on track to reach annualized revenues of US$100 million in the next few quarters.

The veteran CEO acknowledges that some of his fellow tech leaders have playfully suggested the company was fortunate to grab a huge chunk of additional capital before the bottom fell out of the VC funding pool earlier this year.

Waitman, however, says luck had little to do with it.

“My view is serendipity is the residue of design and decisions,” he says. “I didn’t just sit outside on St. Laurent Boulevard hoping gold would fall on my shoulders.”

Waitman says Assent’s leadership team sensed years ago that environmental, social and ethical concerns were moving to the forefront of corporate decision-making and would play a bigger role in shaping consumer buying habits.

No longer was supply-chain analysis simply about procuring goods at the lowest cost. Where those materials came from would be just as important.

“You ignored how you got that mower for $89 at Wal-Mart,” he says. “You ignored how they achieved that. That world is over. From the western world’s perspective, knowing what is going on in your supply chain matters.”

As someone whose career spans the dotcom bust of the early 2000s and the Great Recession of nearly a decade later, Waitman has kept a wise and steady hand on the tiller during his eight years at Assent.

Amid topsy-turvy economic conditions that have prompted Assent to start revising its budget every quarter – rather than once a year as it did in the past – Waitman lives by a credo that’s served him well throughout his career: be quick to adapt, and be ready for anything.

“There are always these mean-reversion times,” he says, referring to the pounding that many blue-chip tech stocks have taken over the past six months. “The mean reversion I expected, so we planned for it. Now we’re using our scale and size to enhance our resilience.”

As Assent continues to expand its global sales and marketing footprint – fewer than half of its employees today live in Ottawa – Waitman says the company must work harder than ever to stay ahead of the curve.

He says global economic turbulence is causing more customers to think twice before pulling the trigger on major purchases.

“In a volatile situation, things can get very jumpy,” Waitman says. “I would say the biggest challenge for a CEO today is we just don’t have the positive visibility we once did. We have to be more nimble and agile to adapt.”

Andrew Waitman, CEO of Assent, is carefully piloting his firm forward in a choppy market. FILE PHOTO

BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

After a flurry of deals that saw Ottawa firms land hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital in the closing months of 2021, the funding pipeline slowed to a trickle last spring – as a pair of studies released recently indicate.

The nation’s capital failed to make the list of top-10 Canadian cities for VC investment in the first half of 2022, according to a report from Toronto-based CPE Analytics.

Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver were the top three centres for attracting capital in the first six months of the year, the study said.

But data from those and other Canadian cities suggests that venture capital firms are no longer pulling out their chequebooks as readily as they were a year ago.

Funding has dried up amid an overall slowdown in the tech sector triggered by macroeconomic events such as the lingering effects of the pandemic, ongoing supply-chain disruptions, rising inflation and the war in Ukraine.

CPE Analytics said Canadian companies secured $4.72 billion in fresh venture capital in the first half of 2022, a 40 per cent decline from the previous year. The drop was even more pronounced in the second quarter, which saw a total of $1.17 billion invested in Canadian firms, 76 per cent less than in the same period in 2021.

Those findings were echoed in a report released by the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association.

The CVCA said Canadian firms attracted $1.65 billion worth of venture capital in the second quarter – down from $5.1 billion the previous year and the lowest level since before the pandemic.

The organization said $6.2 billion in investments were announced in the first half, compared with $7.7 billion in the first six months of 2022.

The CVCA called 2021 “an outlier in terms of Canadian VC investment,” adding the first half of this year is seeing “a normalizing of Canadian VC activities, more consistent with pre-pandemic levels.”

While Ottawa was shut out of CPE’s list, it did manage to squeak in to the No. 8 spot in the CVCA’s list of top 10 Canadian VC cities, with local firms landing a total of $23 million across eight deals in the first half of 2022.

CVCA chief executive Kim Furlong said investors are taking “a cautious approach, deploying dollars more slowly and rethinking strategy” as a result of factors such as rising interest rates that are driving up the cost of capital after a sustained stretch of historically low rates.

“The fundraising environment has shifted slightly,” she wrote in the report. “While institutional investors are staying the course, family offices, high net worth individuals, who have seen their public portfolio value decrease, are treading lightly.

“We’re seeing the same trend lines around the world as market volatility, inflation and interest rate pressures are impacting the investment landscape.”

Yet while both reports offer a compelling snapshot of the country’s VC scene, they don’t tell the whole story.

CPE Analytics tracks equity and debt financing from a range of sources, while the CVCA relies on data submitted by venture capital and private equity firms to determine its rankings – meaning not all deals are necessarily included in the reports’ tallies.

In addition, CPE does not factor funding it deems to be “growth equity” into its calculations.

A Kanata software firm that’s streamlining the research process for scientists racing to learn more about COVID-19 and other diseases has raised millions of dollars in a bid to “double down” on its position as the market leader in a rapidly growing field. Evidence Partners has closed a $20-million financing round led by San Francisco-based Thomvest Ventures with participation from Vancouver’s Pender Ventures and Export Development Canada. Co-founder and chief executive Peter O’Blenis told Techopia the firm plans to use the fresh capital to expand its product engineering, sales and marketing, operations and customer service teams.

Backed by millions of dollars in fresh funding, Fieldless Farms sees fertile ground for expansion as it strives to get its hydroponically grown produce into grocery stores across the country. Launched three years ago, the Ottawa-based startup is already selling leafy greens in more than 40 Farm Boy stores in Ontario, as well as Massine’s Your Independent Grocer and McKeen Metro Glebe in the capital. But founder and CEO Jon Lomow says Fieldless is poised to cultivate a bountiful crop of new market opportunities after finalizing a $17.5-million series-A funding round led by Forage Capital Partners, a Calgary-based VC that primarily invests in agri-tech ventures. Farm Credit Canada and the Business Development Bank of Canada also contributed debt financing to the round.

The chief executive of software maker Lytica is more than happy to concede that Lady Luck has been smiling on the enterprise a lot lately. “We’re in the right place at the right time,” Martin Sendyk told Techopia after the Kanata-based firm announced its latest round of equity financing, a $13-million investment led by Baltimore’s Resolve Growth Partners. The firm’s subscription software platform uses artificial intelligence to compare prices of thousands of components that go into electronic devices such as computers and smartphones, helping manufacturers find the best deals and alerting them when they’re paying more than the going market rate for staples such as resistors and capacitors.

Welbi’s bid to conquer the North American market has received a massive boost in the form of a multimillion-dollar funding infusion the Ottawa-based health-tech firm says will help it expand its platform across the U.S. The six-yearold software company has finalized a $6-million seed round led by Toronto’s Graphite Ventures with participation from MaRS IAF, SoGal Ventures, Roach Capital and a number of angel investors. Co-founder and CEO Elizabeth AudetteBourdeau told Techopia the firm’s fundraising efforts attracted so much interest that the company eventually decided to limit contributors to those investors it felt “could really move the dial to the next level.”

An Ottawa biotech startup that’s caught the eye of leading North American investors for its technology that can regrow spinal cord tissue and other body parts says it’s aiming to start human trials next year after raising millions of dollars in fresh capital. Spiderwort said it’s closed a US$13.2-million series-A round led by Horizons Ventures, a Hong Kong-based venture capital fund that has previously invested in Facebook and Shopify and led Spiderwort’s seed round two years ago. The latest raise brings the firm’s total funding haul to more than US$15 million as it seeks to continue its pioneering research. The new round included participation from K5 Global, BoxOne Ventures and Break Off Capital.

An Orléans-based company that’s spent years developing drugs designed to mimic the pain-killing and anti-inflammatory benefits of cannabis without major side effects is hoping its latest fundraising effort will give it enough working capital to see its research efforts through to market. Tetra Bio-Pharma said it’s agreed to issue up to $6 million worth of unsecured debentures and stock purchase warrants to London-based investment firm Alpha Blue Ocean Group. Chief commercial officer Steeve Neron said the deal should provide enough cash to keep the company afloat for the next 14 to 15 months as it awaits the green light from Health Canada to sell one of its key products.

BY DAVID SALI

david@obj.ca

As a young marketing specialist fresh out of university in 2007, Pierce Ujjainwalla was working a plum job at Cognos. He’d occasionally cast a glance at the building across the river, never imagining in his wildest dreams that one day he’d be running his own company whose sign would adorn that very office. But that’s exactly what happened.

The co-founder and CEO of email marketing software startup Knak was on the scene recently when the company’s logo was installed atop the six-storey building on Gurdwara Road in Ottawa’s south end.

Physically and metaphorically, it’s a sign of the times at Knak – and times are good.

“It’s amazing that the Knak sign is up there,” Ujjainwalla said. “I think we’ve been in stealth mode for a long time, and we’re coming out of it now.”

The firm’s pending move into its new 17,000-square-foot headquarters, slated for early November, is just one more milestone in what’s been a dizzying 12-month stretch.

After seven years of steady, selffunded growth, Knak made its first big splash last November when it raised US$25 million in financing in a round led by New York-based venture capital firm Insight Partners, the same company that led Shopify’s $100-million round in 2013.

Earlier this year, Ujjainwalla was rewarded for his perseverance with a Forty Under 40 nod. Knak earned time in the spotlight again when it made OBJ’s list of Best Places to Work for the second year in a row.

Not bad for a venture that Ujjainwalla hatched in his basement with business partners Brendan Farnand and Patrick Proulx.

“Now that we have the money and the funding behind us, we’re really stepping on the gas and we’re still seeing a lot of opportunity and growth in the market,” Ujjainwalla said. “We just keep on rolling.”

Knak’s secret sauce is a dragand-drop platform that drastically simplifies the process of creating custom marketing emails and landing pages.

It’s a value proposition that deeply resonated with a growing number of companies during the pandemic and it’s even more enticing now that enterprises the world over are tightening their belts amid fears of a looming recession.

FROM LEFT: Erin Seegmiller, Invest Ottawa; Sonya Shorey, Invest Ottawa; Tamey McIntosh, Braiyt.AI; Jennifer Francis, co-founder of SheBoot; and Julia Elvidge, co-founder of SheBoot. PHOTO SUPPLIED.

OBJ STAFF

news@obj.ca

Four women-owned or led companies from Ottawa have been selected to participate in the third cohort of SheBoot, a bootcamp that prepares women entrepreneurs to secure investment.

They join 11 other founders from across Canada, marking the first year SheBoot has expanded the application process nationally. More than 100 applications were received, according to the Capital Angel Network (CAN) and Invest Ottawa, which operate SheBoot.

The four local founders are Tamey McIntosh, co-founder and COO of Braiyt AI Inc.; Varsha Chaugai, co-founder of Evoke Health; Shruti Singh, co-founder of Otterby Inc.; and Alina Li Zhang, founder of Skylinerunners.

“The 15 women-owned and led companies selected are developing innovative solutions with application in a wide array of sectors,” said Julia Elvidge, co-founder of SheBoot and a director with CAN, in a news release. “These include e-commerce to software, medtech, hardware, agtech, robotics, cleantech and energy.”

SheBoot addresses the systemic challenges facing women entrepreneurs in the investment landscape. Despite a banner year in investment, women founders received less than two per cent of VC funding in 2021, the lowest percentage in five years.

“The investment allocated to sole women-founded companies has hovered at, or below, two per cent for years,” commented Jennifer Francis, chair of CAN, director of the Invest Ottawa board and a co-founder of SheBoot. “This is simply unacceptable. Together with these founders and dozens of champions we aim to drive long-term, sustainable change across our ecosystem.”

The 15 founders will participate in a six-week bootcamp this fall that will equip them with fundamental business skills, with a focus on investment-readiness, and facilitate peer networking and introductions to investors and investor networks. It will conclude with a pitch competition at AccelerateOTT, hosted by Invest Ottawa, where participating founders will vie for a total of $300,000 in investment from 30 women angels. This year, the total funding available to entrepreneurs through SheBoot is $450,000.

“This program builds on the Women Founders and Owners Strategy we created at Invest Ottawa in 2018 and addresses key goals established with our community,” said Sonya Shorey, vice-president of strategy, marketing and communications with Invest Ottawa and a SheBoot co-founder. “Together with the Capital Angel Network, our valued investors and partners, we aim to help fuel the growth of more women founders and support the first $100 million woman-owned and led firm in Canada’s capital and many more across the country.”

SheBoot is supported by the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program.

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As students make their return to campus for another academic year, the University of Ottawa is also gearing up to welcome new industry partners thanks to a growing number of spaces purposefully built for collaboration at the local post-secondary university.

The university has several opportunities for industry and communities to work closely with faculty to develop the next generation of talent in Ottawa and find solutions for industry challenges through research partnerships, design spaces and professional development courses.

As business needs continue to evolve, so do the university’s partnership offerings.

The pandemic created many new logistical, operational and technical challenges for businesses which the next generation of talent are actively working to solve – sparking new partnership opportunities focusing on themes such as cybersecurity and 5G connectivity.

It’s a task the university cannot achieve without the cooperation of local industry.

Through hands-on learning opportunities for students as well as its commitment to driving innovation within the Ottawa business community, the university is looking to further strengthen the partnership between academia and industry

in our city by providing exciting collaboration opportunities throughout the year ahead.

Here are a few of the partnership opportunities businesses should know about:

1. The uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range The newest collaboration centre at uOttawa, the Cyber Range is a one-stop-shop for cybersecurity and cybersafety training for local businesses and executives. As more companies become susceptible to cyber threats, the Cyber Range can teach staff how to spot and react to any malicious cyber-event. Using state-of-the-art software and technology, the Cyber Range can simulate a cyber attack, giving users the opportunity to test their responsiveness and learn how to plan for, respond to, manage, contain and remediate a cyber incident.

The Cyber Range is part of a larger Cyber Hub at uOttawa, a cybersecurity centre designed for research, training and professional development. By bringing world-class leaders and experts together under one roof, the Hub will serve as a bridge between academia, industry and government to help arm all sectors with the tools and knowledge they need to protect their digital assets and position Canada as a leader in cyber safety.

2. Engineering design spaces Looking for an innovative way to tackle your next business project? Through uOttawa’s Faculty of Engineering, companies can work with students to imagine, design, build and test solutions for even the most complex projects. With over half a dozen engineering design spaces available for students – several of which are equipped with mechanical equipment and sophisticated technology, such as the Brunsfield Centre or the Manufacturing Training Centre – students, faculty and staff from all disciplines can collaborate on projects and encourage new ways of thinking. This, in turn, enables experiential learning, and promotes entrepreneurship, all while developing new products for local companies.

3. Kanata North campus and Hub350 While uOttawa has a robust presence in the downtown core, the university has also expanded its reach by opening a satellite campus in the heart of Canada’s largest technology park. Being at the heart of this diverse and thriving tech ecosystem allows for industry and academia to more easily connect, collaborate and innovate – with ground-breaking research into autonomous vehicle technology and 5G taking place every day through co-op opportunities and partnerships.

Businesses in the area can directly reach the next generation of talent and ensure they are acquiring the skills needed to be successful in their field.

The University of Ottawa is also an Academic Anchor and Partner of Hub350, which offers access to industry and finance leaders. This newest location in Hub350 will further support collaboration on talent, research and innovation.

For more information about the various collaboration opportunities at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Engineering, visit uottawa.ca/faculty-engineering/partnerships. Your next business success story could be a click away!

Somewhere in the clouds, en route from one hospital to another, is a kidney that’s about to save a life. And the recipient can thank a 5G drone for safely and reliably bringing them their new lease on life.

Technological wonders like this may soon become commonplace due to the new Ericsson-Carleton Mobile Wireless 5G research lab opening at Carleton University this fall. Due to Carleton’s strategic partnership with Swedish tech giant Ericsson, the lab will enable in-depth research into 5G-driven technology.

The lab is located in the 71,000 square foot ARISE building — which stands for advanced research and innovation in smart environments — and is unique in Canada. “The lab has its own 5G network,” said Dr. Ioannis Lambadaris, the Carleton University veteran who was appointed research chair in 5G wireless research earlier this year.

A high-tech environment like this 5G lab isn’t something you can just throw together. “You have to develop something like this over time to set up the programming and background behind it,” said John Luszczek, Ericsson’s business opportunities leader here in Ottawa. “The lab is showing the fruits of this strategic partnership.”

With the launch of the lab, Ericsson and Carleton can check off the final of the five pillars they set out to accomplish, which included the Ericsson chair in 5G wireless research, 5G research projects, educational courses in 5G networks, Ericsson 5G fellowships and the Ericsson-Carleton mobile wireless lab.

In addition to supporting research and solving real-world problems, these pillars contribute to solving the tech industry’s talent crisis by putting Carleton students into Ericsson internships.

How 5G technology will change the world The average person may be wondering if it’s time to buy a next generation 5G smartphone (go right ahead, they’ll still work with the old and new networks).

But the Carleton-Ericsson team is thinking much bigger than that. Current research projects in the B2B space include machine learning, drone navigation, robotics, AI, and CAVs (connected autonomous vehicles, or selfdriving cars).

Aroosh Elahi, digital hardware design manager at Ericsson, is working on a tool that tells businesses how to optimize their 5G network installation.

The Ericsson Indoor Planner knows how many 5G nodes you’ll need and where to put them, providing the most cost and energy efficient approach.

But let’s not forget the part where it can save a life. A 5G network in a large building maps the layout — it’s basically an indoor GPS that enables first responders to “see” into stadiums, airports, malls and hospitals so they can quickly find people who need their help.

As exciting as this is, Carleton and Ericsson are just scratching the surface of 5G’s potential capabilities. Lambadaris says with 5G-driven robotic technology, “Surgeries that are very detailed and demanding, that must be done with utmost precision, can be done by a specialist in another location.”

It would seem that connecting organizations like Carleton and Ericsson in real life will also connect us to a future where the sky really is the limit.

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Over the last year, we’ve been using this column to have a conversation about the positive opportunities that exist in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario to change and grow our organizations as we emerge from the pandemic.

Still, while we’re learning to live with the health-related risks of COVID, the economic hangover of the past few years – from supply chain disruptions, to labour shortages, to pressures caused by inflation – continues to fuel a sense of disruption.

Perhaps I’m an optimist, but I’d like to make the case that we’re prepared to handle these storm clouds in Canada, and even better positioned here in Ottawa.

There are three areas where I believe Ottawa and the National Capital Region have an opportunity to lead in ways that will drive longterm growth for our community.

1. Digital government It is impossible to overlook the impactful and stabilizing force government has on our local economy. It is also reasonable to recognize federal spending and hiring in the decade ahead will not match what we’ve seen over the past 10 years, and through the pandemic.

What is encouraging however, is the leadership and focus we are seeing in shifting the way government works, and how it delivers services by harnessing technology.

It’s a shift that aligns nicely with where Ottawa leads outside of government, in our technology sector.

Last month, Treasury Board president Mona Fortier, and chief information officer Catherine Luelo released a forward-looking document called “Canada’s Digital Ambition 2022”.

It’s a visionary re-think of government service delivery and operations with digital transformation and adoption placed squarely in front.

I’m keen on the contents of this plan as it seeks to address some of the “red-tape” roadblocks that have long been identified as holding back private sector growth and innovation.

As our BDO team advises our clients on everything from taxes to technology transformation, this “digital-first” vision for government reflects what Canadian businesses need to be both efficient and competitive.

It’s a bold vision and welcome undertaking that stands to help make both government, and Canadian enterprise, more efficient, agile and innovative.

2. Leadership in data, analytics and business optimization We’re also encouraged that the downstream impact of this digital ambition plan will dovetail with leadership we’re already seeing from Ottawa-based technology organizations in areas as diverse as supply chain management and clean energy technology.

This practical know-how and capacity will help serve as a foundation for government and industry to align on common economic objectives where technology and innovation are key drivers.

Climate change and clean energy are great examples where government priorities – including the need to measure, report and regulate outputs and outcomes – will rely on technology solutions to achieve business goals. Concurrently, large enterprise, including natural resources and energy firms, are focused on practices that optimize operations to reduce environmental impacts.

It’s a win for government and industry when innovative solutions can be applied that meet mutual objectives, while serving as critical tools for the government as they seek to achieve ambitious and complex industrial policy objectives in areas such as battery construction for electric vehicles.

Kanata-based Kinaxis is a fantastic example of a firm harnessing data to manage complex organizational supply chain challenges. By extension, this local leadership is helping to incubate knowledge around data, analytics and business optimization.

We’re also proud of the work our BDO Lixar team has been doing with clients in the renewable energy sector to optimize operations, including the use of weather and climate data, to support planning and investment decision-making.

Where we saw government play a formative role in Ottawa’s telecommunications industry 65 years ago, an ambitious digital agenda has the potential to stimulate our regional technology sector in the same way.

3. Wealth transfer and private equity There’s one other trend we’re seeing that will help to benefit our local technology sector. It’s the resurgence and growth of Private Equity (PE) and Venture Capital (VC) investment.

The trendlines are encouraging. In 2021, there were 771 private equity deals worth $18B completed in Canada in 2021 (Source: CVCA). Every indication suggests we’re on track to surpass this number in 2022.

Despite inflationary challenges, we continue to see investment in Canada from PE sources domestically as well as from the United States and overseas. It’s a vote of confidence in the direction Canada is headed.

More importantly, with many of these investments aimed at technology firms, it’s recognition of the capability and expertise of what we have to offer in Ottawa’s technology sector.

This access to PE and VC funding is further helping to drive and commercialize innovation. Combined with accumulated knowledge locally, this capital is supporting a platform from which local technology leaders can pursue an idea or vision.

As I started off the column, we’re hardly at ease.

But (and perhaps it’s the resurgence of our Ottawa Senators that has me feeling upbeat) I’m encouraged by the direction we’re headed in the city.

We’re seeing positive signs of alignment with government and our technology sector. At the same time, local technology enterprises and entrepreneurs have the ability to access capital to pursue new ideas that can feed into this collective digital transformation.

It’s this converging path that will help us through the bumps in the road we may encounter in the days ahead.

Mike Abbott is the Ottawa and

Eastern Ontario

Managing

Partner for

BDO Canada.

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If I demote an employee but pay them the same, is that constructive dismissal?

Firing an employee due to poor job performance is fine, right?

Jessica Barrow from PerleyRobertson, Hill & McDougall LLP/s.r.l. dispels these common employment law myths, and more.

MYTH: An employee can sign

For a contract to be enforceable, one of the key ingredients is “consideration.” That’s the quid pro quo of a contract – it’s an exchange of value.

In the employment context, this means I will hire you at X salary and in exchange you’ll do Y job pursuant to the terms of Z employment contract. If you hire someone, they start a job and you then try to get them to sign an employment contract later, the quid pro quo is already done. Now you’re asking them to agree to additional terms and conditions without receiving anything additional in return.

While consideration is generally somewhat commensurate with the thing that’s being exchanged, it doesn’t necessarily have to be money. You should consult an employment lawyer to determine appropriate consideration. MYTH: No managers are

MYTH: I can fire an employee

We often hear of employers working toward termination with employees they deem to be poorly performing but this will likely not provide an opportunity to terminate without proper notice under the Employment Standards Act (ESA).

A determination of just cause is needed, and the test for just cause is onerous and intended to address willful conduct – which means an element of intent. An employee who is simply performing their job poorly, even when they are doing so persistently, will generally not meet the definition for willful misconduct under the ESA.

There is nothing preventing you from terminating an employee who you aren’t seeing eye-to-eye with or who is not performing effectively (assuming the Human Rights Code is not engaged); however, those employees will be entitled to termination pay and possibly severance pursuant to the ESA. Where there is no legally enforceable termination provision limiting liability, termination pay beyond ESA minimums may also be owed.

Under the ESA, managers and supervisors do not qualify for overtime if the work they do is managerial or supervisory. The title of manager, however, is frequently overused and will not be determinative. An employee with true managerial responsibilities will manage employees and will have the authority to hire, fire and/or terminate employees under their purview. It’s again going back to the quid pro quo. True managers are typically already being compensated for the elevated responsibilities associated with manager work.

MYTH: Constructive dismissal

When making any significant changes to the terms or conditions of employment, employers should consider whether the change may be significant enough to constitute constructive dismissal.

While pay is one of the most obvious indicators of constructive dismissal, there are many others including loss of supervisory authority, being required to report to a previous subordinate or equal, toxic work environment, relocation without consent, significant shift changes or decreases in hours of work, substantial increase of workload, refusal to accommodate, and unjustified suspensions.

Bear in mind that outside of the legal risk, is the emotional reaction an employee might have and the resultant risk to relationships in the workplace.

In assessing next steps, employers should consider the value of the employee to the organization and the legal risks, and consider taking steps to remediate the relationship and limit the wider impact on the organization.

lawyer? The team at Perley are committed to providing you with the best legal minds for your needs. Contact them today: perlaw.ca/contact-us/