1.Sophisticated Human Resource Managers will ensure that new staff are hired by way of a written employment agreement/contract and such agreements/contracts will contain specific provisions having to do with how the employment relationship may end. As such, which of the following are false?

a.So long as the employee is an adult, the contractual doctrine of "freedom of contract" provides that the employee can agree to termination/severance payments that are less than what is provided by the provisions of the Employment Standards Act in the absence of such a written provision.

b.Some desirable candidates will negotiate severance entitlements that are far greater than what a Court may award when considering the common law factors to be taken into account for calculating the same.

c.Some staff have valuable experience and skills to "pass on" to other staff before they leave the business. As such, a Human Resource Manager may decide to provide such a staff person with working notice and then task them with teaching one or more remaining staff members the skills or information they have before they leave.

d.The minimum amounts for severance set out in the Employment Standards Actcan be adopted into an employment agreement/contract to avoid paying much higher severance amounts that may otherwise be payable according to the "Bardal factors".

e.Employers or employees may negotiate enhanced severance entitlements as a way to ensure retention of that employee.

2.In the Ontario case of "Bardal", the Court outlined several factors that will be considered when determining an appropriate amount of severance/reasonable notice in the absence of a contractual stipulation to that effect. As to these factors, which of the following is true?

a.Human Resource Managers often present a person with a severance proposal on the basis that it is to reward the person for their past faithful and valuable service. However, severance is not meant to be a reward, it is meant to compensate the person for their loss of income due to their imminent unemployment.

b.A person who is terminated on Friday without compensation/severance of any kind is entitled to severance based on the Bardal factors regardless of whether they begin employment on the following Monday at the same rate of remuneration as they received in the job they have just been terminated from.

c.The more talented and valuable a person has been to their employer for their past service, the greater their severance entitlement is.

d.For most people, being terminated "without cause" is a stressful and demeaning experience. As such, court ordered severance awards include compensation for the negative psychological effect on such a person.

e.If a person remains unemployed for three years following termination, application of the Bardal factors will allow recovery of severance for the loss of employment income to the end of that three year period.

3.In contract law, a "victim" of a wrongful breach of contract must still take reasonable steps to "mitigate" (avoid or lessen) their losses due to the wrongful breach. In the employment realm, what of the following is false as to a person's mitigation obligation following a "wrongful dismissal"?

a.In most instances, mitigation will require the person to take reasonable steps to find new employment.

b.As there is no entitlement to compensation for "hurt feelings" due to termination, a person must immediately begin their search for a new job or face a deduction in their severance entitlement for failing to do so.

c.In some instances job retraining will be a more suitable alternative to immediate job search if the person's skills are limited to a "dying industry".

d.Job search efforts may need to expand as to location and/or type of work if similar work cannot be found locally or otherwise.

e.All earnings obtained due to mitigation efforts are deductible as against any severance entitlement for that applicable period.

4.If the place of employment is not unionized and there are no provisions in the employment contract concerning termination of employment, which of the following would not be within the rights of the employer and allow an employee to successfully sue for a severance payment?

a.An employee is dismissed because there is no more work to do and is given neither notice nor pay in lieu of notice.

b.An employee is dismissed because her employer doesn't like her disposition, and she is given reasonable pay in lieu of notice.

c.An employee is dismissed because he refused to do a job to which he had just been demoted, and he was given reasonable pay in lieu of notice.

d.An employee is dismissed for chronic incompetence after being warned on several occasions and having been provided several "retraining opportunities" and is given neither notice nor pay in lieu of notice.

e.An employee is dismissed because he was found stealing goods from his employer.

1.Barry is the Human Resource Manager at Talbot & Ross. He thinks that the firm should consider other actions apart from simply waiting to see if Larry will improve his work performance. Barry remembers hearing about "progressive discipline" when he took Commerce 304 at UNBC several years ago. Barry has contacted you to see if you have any notes or other materials that will help him better understand the concept of progressive discipline in order to deal with Larry's situation as outlined in Question 13 above. As such, which of the following is false as it relates to the concept of progressive discipline?

a.The concept of progressive discipline was developed to recognize that employment is very much like a relationship and that termination is the most drastic response to poor employee performance.

b.If an employee should reasonably realize that their conduct falls below expected work performance standards, an employer need not embark on progressive discipline and can terminate "for cause" following two or more instances of poor employee performance.

c.In order to be effective, the employer needs to advise the employee that termination may follow repeated instances of the instance of poor performance.

d.Where one instance of poor job performance may not amount to just cause for termination, several instances done after an employee has been warned may amount to just cause.

e.Progressive discipline requires the employer to provide clear notice of the poor performance conduct, an opportunity to the employee to improve and may require the employer to provide resources to the employee to do so.