“In most long-notice-period cases, employers need to make sure that they’re updating employment agreements regularly, having those agreements reviewed, and considering using termination clauses to limit their obligations [upon termination].”
So says Joel Smith, a partner at Williams HR Law in the Greater Toronto Area, after an Ontario court ordered an employer to pay $1.3 million in severance pay and bonuses to a long-term senior employee who was let go in a restructuring.
The worker, 63, came to Canada from England in 1994 and joined PRGX Canada, a global audit and advisory firm, to work in its Mississauga, Ont., office. He was one of the first few employees at PRGX, which served a “highly specialized and niche market.”
