Most HR professionals know workplace violence and harassment are subject to health, safety, and human rights laws. Far fewer realize that Ontario law imposes specific duties on employers when domestic violence intersects with work. The reality is that many employers are ill-equipped to satisfy these duties and don’t realize that these duties can be triggered even before a disclosure of IPV.
This webinar is built around a real (but unreported) case. A junior employee, working a summer job during grad school, receives harassing calls from her partner at work. Her office mates notice and say nothing. IT tells her the best they can do is suggest silencing her phone, and the missed calls from senior colleagues start reflecting badly on her performance. When she finally discloses to an executive manager she trusts, she's rebuffed. Meanwhile, the danger at home escalates toward the risk factors that Ontario's Domestic Violence Death Review Committee associates with lethal outcomes. The employer never learns any of it.
The story ends without tragedy, but as the session makes clear, that outcome was luck, and luck is not a compliance strategy.
Participants walk the timeline three times:
- An overview of the facts to see what happened;
- Review the timeline and identify each legal duty as it activates (OHSA s. 32.0.4 and the "ought reasonably to be aware" threshold; domestic violence leave under the ESA; the human rights dimensions of survivorship, including two pending tribunal decisions; with privacy and child-protection duties explored as variations); and
- Map key moments where it could have gone differently, including the specific words a coworker, an IT desk, and a manager could have used.
Participants leave able to recognize the signals, name the duties, and open the door to supporting the employee when the moment arrives.
Learning Objectives:
- Recognize the forms of domestic violence that follow employees to work, including non-physical forms such as coercive control, harassment, and technology-facilitated abuse
- Identify the workplace indicators of domestic violence that can engage employer duties before any disclosure occurs
- Explain the employer's obligations under OHSA s. 32.0.4, which establishes the legal trigger for taking precautions against IPV in the workplace
- Administer domestic violence leave under the ESA in a legally compliant and survivor-supportive way
- Describe the human rights dimensions of IPV survivorship, including intersecting protected grounds and pending developments in tribunal case law
- Apply Domestic Violence Death Review Committee risk factors to recognize when a situation may involve serious or lethal risk
- Respond effectively in the first sixty seconds of a disclosure or observed warning sign, using practical scripts participants can use immediately
Who should attend this program?
HR professionals at all levels who hold responsibility for health and safety, employee/labour relations, training, leave administration, or workplace investigations. The session is designed to be immediately practical for HR generalists and managers while offering depth for senior HR leaders responsible for policy and compliance.
Registration Difficulties/Questions: Please reach out to the Professional Development team at PDwebinars@hrpa.ca
Speaker
Rika Sawatsky
Rika Sawatsky is an employment lawyer and the founder of Clausework, a Toronto-based practice focused on helping employers tackle gender-based harm at work, with particular depth in workplace domestic violence, sexual harassment, and intersectional discrimination. She is also certified by the International Labour Organization as a participatory gender audit facilitator.
Rika regularly provides training on the intersection of domestic violence and employment law, and her national webinar on designing trauma- and violence-informed workplace responses to intimate partner violence, delivered through Western University’s Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children (CREVAWC) drew a record audience for the Learning Network series, including international attendees. Rika will also be teaching a course on this subject in CREVAWC’s GBV Practice Skills Certificate Program this coming winter term.
Rika has been interviewed by Canadian HR Reporter on harassment in male-dominated workplaces, appeared as the inaugural guest on the Ontario Women's Justice Network's podcast (METRAC), and is the author of the Workplace Domestic Violence Readiness Package, a free self-assessment toolkit for employers.
Before founding Clausework, Rika practised at Norton Rose Fulbright and served as counsel to Ontario's Ministry of Labour.