In the wake of the pandemic’s rise in remote work and prolonged labour shortages, many Canadian companies have offered the option to “work from anywhere” and similar flexibilities.
However, they are assuming risk in doing so, according to Ioana Pantis, employment lawyer at Toronto firm McMillan, especially if employees are heading to locales that don’t have visa programs to accommodate them.
“We’ve gotten this question a lot from clients,” she says. “We do see some employers wanting to offer flexibility to employees to work from anywhere, and they have these work from anywhere policies … they’re taking the risk, but we don’t know down the road whether the risk will materialize.”