By Howard Levitt and Jenny Yu
Your empty offices might already be a contractual obligation.
For five years, employers have been trying to solve the same problem: how to get employees back into the office.
Many have discovered an unpleasant truth.
The office they are trying to bring employees back to may no longer exist — at least not legally.
A recent British Columbia Court of Appeal decision should send a chill through boardrooms and HR departments across the country. The court upheld a finding that an employer constructively dismissed a long-serving employee by requiring her to return to the office full-time after years of working remotely.
The cost? Nineteen months’ pay.
The case illustrates a reality many employers still fail to appreciate: employment contracts are not frozen in time.
Most employees assume that the contract signed on their first day governs the relationship forever. In practice, employment contracts evolve quietly over years or even decades.
The reason is simple. Contracts are promises exchanged for promises. Those promises do not have to be written down.
Nor do changes to those promises.
Every day, employers alter the terms of employment. They change compensation structures. They expand responsibilities. They promote employees. They permit flexible schedules. They allow remote work arrangements.
Usually, nobody drafts a new contract.
Instead, both sides simply carry on.
And that is precisely where employers can get into trouble.
The employee in the...
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