The board meeting is routine — until it isn’t.
Near the end of the agenda, management notes — almost in passing — that a “sensitive employee issue” remains unresolved. It was flagged last quarter. Legal is “monitoring.” HR has advised caution. No decision is requested. No timeline offered. Directors nod their heads, uneasy but relieved to move on.
Six months later, the same issue returns — this time as a human rights complaint, a reprisal allegation and a disclosure question no one wants to answer.
This scene is playing out with growing frequency in Canadian public companies. And it reveals an uncomfortable truth: the most dangerous employment decisions boards now face are rarely reckless. They are deferred.
A performance problem surfaces. Misconduct is alleged. An employee begins to erode team effectiveness or undermine leadership. Management’s instinct, once straightforward, is now restrained. Lawyers are consulted. HR advises caution. The board is briefed, and then re-briefed. Action is postponed until “the risk profile is clearer.”
It never becomes “clearer.”
Across corporate Canada, senior executives are discovering that delay has quietly become the highest-risk employment strategy available. Files that should have been resolved early metastasize into complex, multi-forum disputes precisely because nothing decisive was done when it mattered.
This is not the result of a dramatic shift in substantive employment law. Employers retain the right to manage, discipline and...
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