Greg Wycliffe - Bank fires work at home HR employee who questioned C0vid policies.

00:00:00.000 I'm a Canadian. My name is Greg. I'm so excited to do this interview today.

00:00:05.000 As a reminder, I have started a Patreon. So if you want to keep content like this alive,

00:00:09.360 go to my Patreon, patreon.com slash Greg Wycliffe. Now, to set up this interview,

00:00:16.740 I want to tell you how this all started. Essentially, I sent out a tweet a week or

00:00:21.700 so ago about the ongoing mandates because people are talking about how the mandates have been

00:00:26.380 dropped. All the work mandates have been dropped. And I sent out a tweet. I sent out a survey to

00:00:32.260 say, um, Hey, who's still experiencing mandates at work? Who still needs two jabs to, uh, to go to

00:00:39.480 work. And I, I posted this on Instagram as well. And it got hundreds and hundreds of responses,

00:00:48.380 different stories in different industries, spanning you name it, you know, telecom, uh,

00:00:54.440 banks uh firefighters nurses of course which i've covered before on the channel but i got a message

00:01:00.440 from a brave individual from one of the major banks and he said hey here's my story um and

00:01:08.440 we're going to go over his whole story today but but the crazy thing at the at the end of it

00:01:12.200 is he got terminated when everyone was still working from home so and i like to emphasize

00:01:19.080 that point because it really doesn't make any sense so we're going to introduce him

00:01:22.920 uh in just a second here but to give you an idea uh this individual is 31 years old he's an hr

00:01:28.360 professional for 10 years in canada mostly toronto uh he's got a e-com major in hr minor in law from

00:01:35.640 myerson university he worked at ibm rogers communications and most recently cibc um where

00:01:44.200 cibc before being terminated um from working working from home during the pandemic without

00:01:50.040 further ado let's get him on here mr austin austin cisco thank you so much for joining us there he

00:01:59.000 is how you doing good good how are you doing i'm doing well i'm doing i'm doing all right um

00:02:08.440 yeah your uh your story is we're gonna get into to the nitty-ditty nitty-gritty details of course

00:02:16.440 But, um, I mean, first and foremost, uh, you know, you're going public with this and it's

00:02:24.460 been a pretty crazy couple of years, families being ripped and torn apart, people losing

00:02:30.080 their jobs.

00:02:31.020 And there's, unfortunately, this culture of silence, you know, don't ask, don't tell,

00:02:35.780 don't, don't make any, a sound.

00:02:37.540 So first and foremost, like you're making the decision to go, to go public on this.

00:02:42.120 That takes a lot of bravery.

00:02:43.680 You know, where does that come from?

00:02:45.640 like like was there a moment for you to decide to go public or yeah so no it's good question so i've

00:02:52.980 i've thought about it for probably since it started happening uh but obviously i was still

00:02:58.080 employed at the bank um was still trying to weigh my options you know sometimes going public and

00:03:02.960 open about this stuff can actually kind of hurt your position um but you know i think as is the

00:03:08.860 last year sort of went on um you know we say so lots of people speaking up sharing their experiences

00:03:14.000 about the mandates and and some of the heavy-handed decisions that employers were making

00:03:18.080 and my perspective was that majority of the ones that we were hearing about

00:03:22.960 ones that that people who were maybe on the side of mandates kind of agreed with them they they

00:03:27.440 understood the logic right you know if you're a nurse working in a long-term care facility you

00:03:31.040 got to be vaccinated you know i still have my own views on other industries and what they did and

00:03:35.280 certainly don't agree with mandates but you know you at least could sort of understand the logic

00:03:39.680 behind it i mean you heard a lot of those stories right doctors nurses firefighters etc

00:03:44.320 um but what i didn't hear much about was people in my kind of situation um where i was working

00:03:50.160 from home right which is the bizarre thing about all this is uh i was working from home for two

00:03:55.280 years uh since february 2020 was the last time i was in the office and then in march work from home

00:04:01.600 continued working from home up until my dismissal um so for me going public with it and kind of

00:04:07.920 talking about it is really just to bring more awareness to some of the insanity behind these

00:04:12.400 decisions right and i think you know over the last year talking with friends and family about

00:04:16.800 my circumstance and what i went through i you know talking to people who were supportive of

00:04:21.040 the mandates you know agreed with them but when they heard my story they were like that doesn't

00:04:24.800 make any sense like they're like there's no way there has to be more to it i'm like there really

00:04:28.560 isn't right and uh and i think that there's a lot to do with my situation and being in hr

00:04:34.800 are and just my experiences my education gives me a bit of a unique perspective uh from an

00:04:40.080 employment law standpoint from uh what employers can and can't do right that gray area like what

00:04:46.100 they should have done um what would have been reasonable all that sort of stuff so for me it's

00:04:50.880 really just to share my experience to give people more awareness that hey it's not just those who

00:04:55.300 are working in long-term care or in high-risk settings who were got terminated for not being

00:04:59.960 vaccinated it was those who worked from home and didn't agree with with certain you know uh

00:05:05.700 covid related policies so really you know not not much beyond that just sharing my experience and

00:05:10.080 kind of letting people know that that situations such as mine did happen um and we'll get into it

00:05:15.020 you know as you know the whole story so um yeah i don't know where you want to start

00:05:19.180 yeah yeah no that that is a good point you know you want to speak out to let people know just how

00:05:26.200 absurd it is how absurd is it well they'll fire you even when you work from home even when there's

00:05:31.580 really no argument to be made about health or safety whatsoever um yeah so where are we going

00:05:37.520 to begin let's begin at the beginning because you know uh to give people a timeline around last year

00:05:43.780 uh like this time last year is more or less like the fall is when uh corporate mandates were kind

00:05:50.540 of coming down in a lot of places and this is mandates of you need to get the jab to keep your

00:05:56.580 job or you know a lot of different conversations or different kind of mandates coming at

00:06:01.100 different companies but this started to come down at your organization CIBC and you sent

00:06:09.500 the first email you kind of came out and spoke up for the first time and you know tell me what that

00:06:17.560 writing that first email was like you know were you afraid to speak out at all and also like what

00:06:22.720 did that email include yeah so yeah so we can go back to the start so to your point it would have

00:06:27.700 been august of last year so 2021 CIBC along with all of the other major FIs decided to put an

00:06:36.140 announcement that all employees must be vaccinated by a particular date CIBC's was October 31st of

00:06:42.660 2021 uh the unfortunate thing with that wording and that announcement is there was no context or

00:06:49.180 information provided about what would happen come october 31st if you were not vaccinated uh it

00:06:55.600 didn't talk about what the exemption process would be for religious or medical reasons it didn't talk

00:07:00.120 about if there was any differentiation between working on site like let's say you're a bank

00:07:05.440 teller where you're facing clients which you can kind of understand the logic right maybe you do

00:07:09.320 to be vaccinated at least from their standpoint right but there's no mention of if you work from

00:07:13.320 home if this was going to matter right so it was just you need to be vaccinated all employees are

00:07:18.200 required to be vaccinated by october 31st um so that was obviously unsettling uh given my position

00:07:24.440 i thought you know what nothing is happening concretely yet let's just kind of wait this out

00:07:29.160 um they were certainly targeting the people who were in the office first right the people who

00:07:33.400 never went home right the bank tellers the you know the back office had been people who were

00:07:37.480 you know in the office couldn't do their job from home right they focused on on getting their

00:07:41.640 information first and you know applying those covet policies um but come october uh they started

00:07:49.200 asking all employees right to complete kind of an attestation and uh you and i talked about like

00:07:55.360 what is an attestation right and it's kind of um i don't know if you have that the definition there

00:08:00.040 but the attestation yeah yeah if you have like an attestation people are confused like what is

00:08:05.740 attestation right were they just asking you to disclose your status or were they doing more

00:08:10.620 so as you can see there it's a it's a legal document and a certifiable certifiable document

00:08:15.420 basically where you would acknowledge having done something or you're agreeing to something right so

00:08:20.140 it's effectively kind of a contract or or an extension of your employment contract right

00:08:25.020 depending on the wording in the attestation so they were asking all employees regardless of where

00:08:30.860 you worked to complete the attestation and that attestation you had to say you had to disclose

00:08:35.820 your status so you had to say i am vaccinated i am not vaccinated or i choose not to disclose

00:08:43.420 so that was actually a third option that not all banks did some banks just said you have to say yes

00:08:48.780 or no i am or i'm not but the CIBC said you can put you choose not to disclose which on surface

00:08:54.220 it's like oh that's nice right they're you know they're not forcing me to disclose i can say i

00:08:58.060 choose not to disclose that could be vaccinated it could be i might not be but the problem with

00:09:03.100 the attestation that at least i saw was that it was what you were agreeing to even if you selected

00:09:09.260 i choose not to disclose so by choosing not to disclose you're still completing the attestation

00:09:15.100 and you are agreeing to the terms that are in that attestation um and some of the wording in

00:09:20.460 there was a bit kind of confusing and i had some questions around it because it said you know by

00:09:24.780 completing this attestation again even if you choose not to disclose you are agreeing to have

00:09:31.660 your information used disclosed shared in whatever manner they deem necessary as well as to agree to

00:09:38.380 whatever health and safety protocols they deem necessary right to manage the pandemic which

00:09:43.900 also would include possibly maintaining a fully vaccinated status right including boosters right

00:09:48.620 so they did make a comment about that so for me i'm not vaccinated i chose not to for a variety of

00:09:54.140 reasons that that's a whole other topic but um i just wasn't comfortable sharing that information

00:09:59.580 to begin with right because to me i thought in my head okay i work from home right i'm not going

00:10:04.380 back into the office anytime soon um this is a private medical you know question we've tiptoed

00:10:10.780 around anything like that in my entire career we were very sensitive about asking people medical

00:10:15.500 information if they have disabilities all that sort of stuff and then also i wasn't sure what

00:10:20.780 i was agreeing to right even if i chose not to disclose am i agreeing to follow whatever health

00:10:26.140 and safety protocols but they weren't telling us what those health and safety protocols would be

00:10:30.620 like so what am i agreeing to right so i had questions so i guess that gets to your question

00:10:34.700 about like what was that first email so sorry i just want to interject for one quick moment

00:10:41.260 yeah so an attestation um you know the definition is certifiable legal document that provides

00:10:47.980 it's irrefutable proof that an employee did or not take an action like historically an attestation

00:10:53.260 it sounds like deals with like a very kind of specific scenario for a specific you know employee

00:10:58.700 and i want to clarify because especially during the past couple years it seems that some words

00:11:05.100 take on new meaning like you know for example vaccination used to mean like immunity but they

00:11:10.400 kind of changed that definition uh the cdc changed that definition if i'm not mistaken or the who did

00:11:15.500 to not even include immunity just just might protect you or hopefully protect you

00:11:19.720 and is there a similar thing here with attestation as in this is the first time an attestation is

00:11:26.360 is kind of being presented as oh by the way you also uh are going to agree with health and safety

00:11:33.120 protocols into the future like is that a unique thing in this scenario would you say at least in

00:11:38.980 my experience i've never seen it used in this kind of circumstance i've seen attestations used

00:11:45.400 in hr and in the corporate world and and the only times i've seen it being used is when

00:11:50.280 like i'll give an example let's say an employee um you know sends emails to their personal email

00:11:55.100 from their work email right so they they sent something home to their personal email they

00:11:59.200 wanted to read it they whatever uh and let's say it was company property right company data or like

00:12:04.640 a company you know document um we would find out about it we would say hey look you can't be sending

00:12:09.480 you know corporate stuff home you need to delete it uh in order for us to confirm and that you have

00:12:14.940 fact delete it and you didn't you know disclose it or share it elsewhere or have it stored you

00:12:18.780 need to sign this attestation you need to sign off and say i deleted it i did this i don't have any

00:12:23.180 more copies i never distributed it so that's that's where i've seen it right again because

00:12:27.340 that employee would be certifying that they did not do anything with it that it's destroyed

00:12:32.220 but what was interesting about this attestation is not just that it's unique that i've never seen

00:12:37.020 it with respect to um kind of amending your employment contract or agreeing to new employment

00:12:41.980 terms it was the the the inability for them to just like confirm to me if it was in fact an

00:12:49.080 extension of my employment agreement right because i was asking questions and that's what drove me to

00:12:52.580 my email saying hey i'm not sure i'm comfortable with this and and even if i'm comfortable with

00:12:57.620 the whole uh mandate as it's being rolled out like i have some concerns from a legal perspective

00:13:02.220 from an ethical or moral standpoint as well um so i that's kind of what brought me to raise my

00:13:08.280 concerns and send them an email which i kind of escalated up and said here's my concerns uh here's

00:13:13.640 what i'm hesitant about you know i'd welcome a discussion if there's a learning opportunity for

00:13:17.800 me to to learn more about the laws or maybe i've missed something like educate me if i'm wrong

00:13:22.940 that's i've been wrong before right i've misinterpreted uh certain laws or guidelines

00:13:28.280 or policies before and that's why you know you talk with your one-ups or your your management

00:13:33.260 team for to get clarity right which which is kind of what led me to that email so i think that's

00:13:38.380 kind of back to your question right about like was i scared like why did i do it like what did

00:13:42.260 it contain um so you want to kind of kind of talk about that email a bit yeah this first email um

00:13:48.760 or maybe we should go over kind of just to clarify for everyone who's watching you know this is this

00:13:53.480 is austin he got fired from cibc uh he was working from home most people were working from home

00:13:59.840 uh at the time and we're kind of going over the play-by-play that happened uh for himself and

00:14:05.880 this might apply to you or anyone else who is still working in a big corporate environment

00:14:10.360 because um it's not just hey did you get the jab or not uh it turns out that you know this um

00:14:18.300 attestation that they made employees sign might have had a lot of other stipulations uh and because

00:14:24.860 austin is uh an educated and and um you know high performing hr professional you're on top of this

00:14:32.620 you know about employment law and um and yeah it sounds like this attestation i'm gonna get the

00:14:40.040 the problems with the four problems with this attestation yeah just to clarify for people

00:14:45.960 yeah so bring up a good point about excuse me the uh the concerns i had right um because i thought

00:14:53.940 even if i chose not to disclose um that i was agreeing to something right and i didn't want to

00:15:00.580 blindly agree right to future policies that i might not agree with and let's say they you know

00:15:05.860 i sign off the attestation i choose not to disclose and it says by completing this you're

00:15:10.020 agreeing to follow whatever policies we need and then let's say they implement a policy that i then

00:15:15.140 don't agree with right like testing for example maybe i wasn't comfortable with testing sure

00:15:19.780 balance or mask use at all times or whatever whatever policies or procedures they were going

00:15:24.740 to put in place i was not they weren't telling us what that was and my concern was that if i agree

00:15:29.620 in this attestation and then at a later date they say okay hey you agreed to follow the policies

00:15:34.420 because you didn't do the attestation you got to follow this and then i say no did i just set

00:15:38.740 myself up for them to actually terminate me for cause justifiably because i agreed right if i

00:15:44.020 agree to it'd be like if you worked in a job a heavy machine operator and you agreed to drug

00:15:49.540 testing as a condition of employment right that's it happens it's common and then you said no i'm

00:15:54.100 not doing the drug testing they could fire you right because you agreed as a condition of employment

00:15:58.100 to follow you know x and y you know policy right so there's that the second aspect of it was for

00:16:04.580 those who did get vaccinated right and they said on that attestation yes i'm vaccinated

00:16:10.020 in that attestation it made a comment about it being required to maintain a fully vaccinated

00:16:16.640 status as defined by public health including boosters so my thought was you know and again

00:16:22.360 I asked them bluntly this question I didn't get a clear answer because I think it's a valid

00:16:26.520 question is that if I was vaccinated I complete the attestation saying I am and I agree to

00:16:32.220 everything in that attestation and at a future date they say you need a booster right similar

00:16:37.660 to what western university is doing right with their you know vaccine mandate and talking about

00:16:42.160 boosters now as a requirement to go to school what if your employer now does it and if you said no i

00:16:47.700 was done it too i don't want a third they said well you agreed to a third as a condition of

00:16:51.600 employment so if you don't you're now terminated for cause and you've agreed right so that was my

00:16:56.280 concern was that am i am i and others agreeing to you know future conditions that could really

00:17:03.320 put us in a position where they could terminate us reasonably for cause right so again that's my

00:17:08.880 theory my my understanding i asked them this bluntly did not really get a uh concrete answer

00:17:14.160 uh but was ultimately terminated for not agreeing so it kind of seemed to be that that's how it

00:17:19.020 played out um so you have the problems with the attestation there so my my first one is it's

00:17:23.940 sorry hold on hold on is there any evidence of that being the case yet in terms of uh an

00:17:30.400 attestation being like oh yeah it wasn't just us asking for your vaccination status it was us kind

00:17:36.740 of getting you to agree to you will be fully vaccinated with boosters into the future or else

00:17:42.080 we will fire you uh not that i've seen or heard yet right they haven't talked about boosters i

00:17:46.920 haven't heard anything like that and what's ironic is all of those additional protocols that they

00:17:51.940 said we need to agree to are currently on hold paused don't exist right so there's no testing

00:17:57.440 policy there's no mask use policy in the office there's no uh requirement to be vaccinated to be

00:18:04.020 considered for jobs so there was for a window of like october november until the spring uh and

00:18:09.700 then they dropped it all right because they realized that the policies didn't really make

00:18:13.140 sense they weren't effective in in protecting employees health and that they were i suspect

00:18:17.680 they know that they were discriminatory and a violation of people's privacy yeah so they pulled

00:18:22.020 back right so there's no evidence now that this attestation could cause further issues but you

00:18:26.680 know time time will tell we'll see this winter right yeah and uh that came up a lot when i was

00:18:32.380 asking people about mandates um because when i first kind of made the survey it's like were the

00:18:38.920 mandates dropped uh are they being enforced uh is it a gray area and someone immediately said uh

00:18:45.660 greg you need to put an option on there that says they were suspended and it's like isn't that kind

00:18:50.500 of creepy uh language to use it's like yeah it's it's just temporarily temporarily suspended

00:18:56.200 and kind of implying it's it's gonna come back you know yeah um so that's concerning right well

00:19:03.940 now they everyone who's completed the attestation has no recourse right they've they've agreed

00:19:08.600 right they've they've like my view was they've they created new conditions of employment right

00:19:14.580 new requirements for your job um that to me are not actually required for the job so so even

00:19:20.660 forgetting about covet or any kind of that sort of stuff if you make any changes to the conditions

00:19:27.060 of someone's employment so this is just from like employment law hr if you make any changes

00:19:32.580 right whatever it may be it has to be a bona fide occupational requirement meaning whatever changes

00:19:38.980 has to be justified as necessary for the job right like i can't say you know greg you know

00:19:44.660 as a condition of employment working at home you know you need to you know be drug tested

00:19:49.140 right that's a perfect example you'd be like that's not required like i don't need that for

00:19:52.340 safety there's no need for it um so for me like there was no justify of a reason for them to even

00:19:58.420 ask you know for this information to begin with let alone impose these policies

00:20:02.500 because i could do my job effectively at home right the the on-site the bank tellers anyone who

00:20:07.140 who could not work from home it's a bit of a different story i still have different views

00:20:10.660 on that but certainly anyone who could and did work from home it was there was no need to ask

00:20:16.100 right and then to me that was a violation of privacy right we've my entire career like i said

00:20:20.820 we've tiptoed around any kind of medical information due with employees it's highly sensitive

00:20:26.420 you know we you know if they have an accommodation request because they have medical issues it's

00:20:30.340 kept very private it's we have a whole process um and that's how it should be right you got to

00:20:35.540 protect people's privacy um so my my concern in sending this email is i i felt kind of there's

00:20:42.420 two reasons why i sent the email to my leadership uh one was uh i'm an hr professional and i felt

00:20:49.780 in my job at the bank if i felt we were doing something illegal you know unethical whatever

00:20:56.260 that i have a duty to call it out and and ask questions and and get clarity because if i you

00:21:01.620 know that's what you would expect a good employee to do right if someone is doing something that

00:21:05.860 you suspect is is illegal or going to get us into trouble or violates employees rights you call it

00:21:10.900 out so there i was concerned as an hr professional wanting to get clarity and then also just concerned

00:21:15.860 as an individual because it was going to impact me so certainly when i was writing that email

00:21:21.380 i was concerned of kind of one the reputational impact it was going to have on me

00:21:26.100 I was concerned that I might be retaliated against right like terminated for speaking up

00:21:32.040 at that point based on the direction of where things were going I kind of saw the writing on

00:21:37.680 the wall and I thought you know what I can't in good conscience not say something and at

00:21:43.140 least not try to get clarity right at least say hey here's my concerns here's what I think the

00:21:46.740 legal issues are here's what I'm worried about like help me understand like what what's going

00:21:53.160 on it and also can you answer my questions about the attestation am i signing a new employment

00:21:57.480 agreement like just yes or no is this like if i accept this and then i disagree with testing three

00:22:03.560 months from now if that becomes a policy am i going to get terminated for cause but they wouldn't

00:22:08.520 answer that right so in my email i i listed off i'm looking at it here just a number of different

00:22:14.280 laws um right pipeta criminal code regarding consent you know a whole list of things that i

00:22:21.160 felt is where we kind of write you have them listed there right just and that's just kind of

00:22:25.160 the surface right anyone who wants to see that read into it you'll see once you start reading

00:22:29.160 it you'll see how it relates to to kind of my concerns um so i shared that and i also shared um

00:22:37.640 my concerns that this was really two one a privacy issue because you're asking employees for medical

00:22:42.360 information uh and then two it's it's discriminatory right because you're effectively saying

00:22:47.400 hey everyone tell us your your status and they would argue well you know you can choose not to

00:22:52.940 disclose but they even said if you choose not to disclose be treated as unvaccinated because they

00:22:58.340 couldn't confirm right if i didn't answer if i chose not to disclose or i ignored the survey

00:23:02.420 which i did um they would have to deem me as unvaccinated right which is fair right they can't

00:23:07.840 confirm that i am so they're going to treat me as unvaccinated but the discriminatory aspect comes

00:23:12.900 from they're taking this information right this this medical information that they had no right

00:23:18.420 to ask for at least for those working from home because it's not required for the job

00:23:23.060 and then they're taking what you answered greg and what i answered and said okay greg if you

00:23:26.900 said you're vaccinated you're going to follow this set of policies and austin chose not disclose you

00:23:32.820 didn't respond you're going to follow this set of policies and the policies that they were talking

00:23:36.260 about in the procedures were going to be different based on your medical choices and what you

00:23:40.900 responded to so to me i was like is that not like the definition of discrimination is you're you're

00:23:46.100 applying different policies to different sets of people based on their medical choices right it's

00:23:51.300 not like hey we need the information that everyone's gonna have to be tested everyone's gonna have to

00:23:55.220 wear a mask it wasn't that at all right so i i shared that that email uh it led to a phone

00:24:01.460 conversation with one of my executives um which really didn't go anywhere it was very much kind

00:24:07.540 kind of like a circular conversation and anyone who's watching or listening right now you know

00:24:12.540 when people ask politicians questions and they don't even answer it they just kind of like they

00:24:17.060 say the talking points that's kind of what it was right it was well all the banks are doing it like

00:24:22.680 it was almost verbatim that right all the banks are doing it legal would legal would have been

00:24:27.460 involved they they wouldn't have signed off on this if it was going to get us into trouble

00:24:30.900 but i still said well what about like what do you think like what's your interpretation of the law

00:24:35.280 no no answer um and it basically came down to my executive at the time saying is this the hill you

00:24:42.160 want to die on and i will let you know if your position puts you in harm's way right so to me

00:24:47.680 like those were it's pretty strong language i'm like okay like am i like i'm gonna die on this

00:24:52.560 hill like terminated like what does that mean so obviously after that um a bit unsettling uh and

00:24:59.280 and from from that email we kind of left it as um asking everyone that i still said i think it's a

00:25:06.000 privacy issue uh and they said well we're not sure what these policies are going to be right the ones

00:25:11.520 that i said might be discriminatory right we don't know they haven't been rolled out yet we're just

00:25:15.520 talking about it this was mid-october um and they said let's not debate whether they're discriminatory

00:25:21.040 or not because we don't know what they are and i said okay that's fair right let's just wait

00:25:24.320 all right so let's wait see what happens uh and then things just kind of set and i ignored the

00:25:30.540 deadline of october 31st not knowing if it was going to lead to my termination again at that

00:25:36.240 point they did not say you know come october 31st this is what's going to happen they just said okay

00:25:42.600 if you don't complete the attestation we're going to treat you as unvaccinated i said okay that's

00:25:46.120 fair like you can treat me however you want i'm still working from home there's no there's no

00:25:50.140 immediate implications to my my employment now although it's obviously at that point was very

00:25:55.600 unsettling because i still had a long list of questions i was asking them and and not really

00:25:59.760 getting responses to so um so that kind of got us to the next part so maybe i'll just pause there

00:26:04.620 um because before we get into kind of when they started listing out the policies um i know we

00:26:10.940 talked about the attestation my concerns on it so yeah maybe there's there's a few things i wanted

00:26:16.780 to draw attention to there i think i think we might have kind of got a little bit choppy there

00:26:21.080 are we still here folks let us know if you're if it's still if the stream is still good

00:26:25.120 but i think it's a bit smoother now yeah um so i first want to say i mean you are a hr professional

00:26:33.820 and obviously these mandates that came down are totally new and totally unprecedented to borrow

00:26:41.440 a term and i just find it so fascinating that you are the guy uh to to be asking questions like

00:26:49.820 you are it seems you are the only guy who's asking these questions very fair questions you know like

00:26:56.340 what are the alternatives for people who aren't going to do this like what are the ramifications

00:27:00.400 for someone who's you know valid questions very valid questions and uh and of course it's

00:27:08.080 unfortunate that they weren't really met with any answers but i think we kind of just went over this

00:27:12.720 but more or less you were right on the money in terms of hey this looks like it's going to be

00:27:17.640 discriminatory and you called out your boss for that or your higher-ups rather and that ended up

00:27:24.300 being true down the road when kind of testing for the unvaccinated uh yeah came to be so you're right

00:27:30.260 on the money in other words so it did end up happening you're right so um basically into

00:27:35.460 november right so the deadline passed right anyone who didn't respond uh or who wasn't vaccinated

00:27:41.060 again no no communication and and for me even being in hr right like usually we have a heads

00:27:47.620 up to a lot of stuff we're privy to more things at a corporate level about announcements decisions

00:27:52.580 particularly decisions impacting employees right um like we're always in the loop where we have

00:27:58.020 strategy sessions communication sessions about what's going to be discussed what what emails

00:28:02.340 are going to go out um we were kept in the dark for most of it um so you asked like the question

00:28:08.980 or made a comment like was anyone like you know i was the only one speaking out at least that's

00:28:12.820 my only perspective um you know we would have weekly or bi-weekly uh large hr calls with

00:28:18.980 leadership talking about this and no one was really uh making comments um right some people would

00:28:25.460 right and they would post anonymously but they wouldn't answer the questions they would just

00:28:28.900 kind of pick and choose what to respond to on these calls um so i don't know like i know other

00:28:33.380 people like my colleagues were very frustrated with the lack of communication from our leadership

00:28:38.740 because we were we're facing the business right so just to give maybe a quick context about the

00:28:43.060 type of hr job i was in right because people probably listening to this they hear hr and

00:28:47.460 like what is hr they just hire people fire people um so i'll be very quick as quick as i can in

00:28:53.700 describing kind of my role in hr and what hr does so if you think of hr i explain this to you greg

00:28:58.580 it's like to me hr is anything to do with the employee and employer relationship it's a very

00:29:04.660 basic thing right so that includes recruiting hiring making offers training them developing

00:29:10.180 them managing their performance dealing with their payroll dealing with their benefits dealing with

00:29:14.820 their pension investigating them for for misconduct letting people go restructuring all this kind of

00:29:20.660 stuff falls under the umbrella of hr right and these large companies they have very large hr

00:29:25.860 teams right so they have people doing payroll right just people doing payroll just people doing

00:29:29.780 benefits you know just people doing compensation right designing bonus plans and salary plans and

00:29:35.300 all this other stuff and this would be hr people who specifically focus on this one kind of silo

00:29:40.580 pillars right and in a small company you'd have like one or two hr people that do all of it right

00:29:44.820 but in the large large corporate environment it's it's kind of siloed and and and hr it all reports

00:29:50.580 under hr but then they have people in my type of role which is kind of an hr business partner

00:29:54.980 uh hr consultant hr manager it's all kind of interchangeable and basically we are called hr

00:30:01.540 generalists right so we're supposed to know you know a good foundation of all the areas of hr

00:30:06.000 because we've been exposed to it right we kind of understand payroll and and benefits and and

00:30:10.440 hiring people and letting them go like we're supposed to be kind of the experts in a little

00:30:14.720 bit of everything and then what we're done do is we're deployed and we're given a part of the

00:30:19.640 business and basically there's there's multiple people like me in my role and we all between all

00:30:25.800 of us we all kind of cover off a section of the business and we are the face of hr for them

00:30:30.140 okay i think i froze there hang on no i can see it okay it's frozen in mind as long as the video

00:30:39.000 is good for you guys so it's looking good i was like the face of hr for them right any kind of

00:30:43.420 hr questions that came up i would deal with right so that that's kind of my my role uh within hr

00:30:49.040 I know not everyone understands kind of like why I would be privy to certain stuff.

00:30:53.320 But can I ask you, we got a question actually from a viewer that's pretty interesting.

00:30:59.240 What if your initial employment contract says something along the lines of, quote,

00:31:04.460 you agree to abide by all present and future company policies?

00:31:09.000 Doesn't that set you up pretty much for any jab policy?

00:31:14.960 My gut feeling is it's a gray area.

00:31:19.040 i don't i think that at the end of the day any policy or anything that you're agreeing to has

00:31:24.580 to be reasonable for the role right it has to be a requirement for the job so i think that if they

00:31:31.340 could justify any change or any policy that says it is this makes sense for your job and you've

00:31:36.780 agreed to it then probably you're bound by it but in this instance right where they're they're

00:31:42.180 asking you know people to be tested or to you know get vaccinated even work from home to me

00:31:48.560 it's it's not justified so that type of language in a an employment contract or whatever you know

00:31:55.520 may set you up for that but i don't think it means that they can just arbitrarily

00:31:59.280 add in a policy like what if they said hey it's a mental health pandemic we need all employees to

00:32:03.200 start taking prozac right like they can't that's not justifiable it's not right they can't do that

00:32:07.520 so even if you agreed i think it still needs to be a reasonable policy or or whatever it is yeah

00:32:14.000 going forward right great i'm still i'm still frozen on my end hang on here um you're looking

00:32:21.040 great over here man you're looking great over here so don't sweat it don't sweat it okay yeah

00:32:25.680 we'll just leave it that um okay if i kind of just uh speak up i just see my face your face frozen

00:32:30.480 yeah um no worries so this was too like i was explaining that um you know i was privy to this

00:32:35.840 stuff my colleagues were were frustrated with the lack of communication the lack of heads up to these

00:32:40.880 changes but inevitably they they did end up going forward with these discriminatory policies or at

00:32:47.280 least that's how i viewed them which was you know if you said you're not vaccinated or you chose not

00:32:53.120 to disclose did not complete the attestation like i did you will have to follow these sets of policies

00:32:59.440 and if you said yes i am vaccinated you follow this set of policies right so two two distinct

00:33:04.320 set of policies that people would have to follow and i don't remember all the exact details and

00:33:08.800 the nuanced stuff but there were two main things uh one was around mask use and the other was

00:33:14.720 testing so again i don't have the policies in front of me i don't recall exactly what they

00:33:20.000 said but in effect the mask use one between the two groups uh had the unvaccinated or those who

00:33:26.880 chose not to disclose having fewer opportunities to take off their mask in the office meaning

00:33:32.480 i think it was only allowed to take off your mask at your desk while eating but all other times you

00:33:37.440 must keep it on including common areas where if you're vaccinated you can take off your mask in

00:33:42.080 common area you can take off your mask in meeting rooms so to me like that's very unsettling like

00:33:47.280 if i go into the office am i like you know i got a badge like to show everyone like that i wasn't

00:33:52.480 vaccinated so that was kind of uh unsettling and then the testing right so there the policy was

00:33:58.800 going to be that when i was coming into the office or if anyone who was unvaccinated chose not to

00:34:04.400 disclose or didn't complete the attestation they would have to do a test to be testing twice a week

00:34:09.440 before they come in while the vaccinated would not have to right and at this time like it's more

00:34:14.320 widely known now that regardless if you got it or not um you know you're able to transmit so to me

00:34:20.480 i was like there's kind of some broken logic there like i don't understand so once they they said

00:34:25.280 here are the policies that's when i said okay i have a lot of questions right um you know who's

00:34:30.400 paying for the testing right who's who's enforcing it am i going to walk into a cibc office and have

00:34:37.520 to go see a nurse who's going to swab me before i can go to my desk is that what's going to happen

00:34:42.720 right and they they started making comments about these policies without really being able to

00:34:47.520 provide answers right so i asked questions like are you guys paying for the tests they said well

00:34:52.320 we don't know might have to i'm like well i can't agree to something if i'm gonna have to pay for it

00:34:57.600 or if i don't know who has access to the results or how they're going to be stored or is it done

00:35:02.880 on site right do i go in and if i test positive do i go home right and people see me like walk

00:35:07.280 home like hey i just had coffee with austin why isn't he in the office like oh we must have had

00:35:11.360 cove like right or just the fact that like they would know that before i enter the office if i'm

00:35:16.240 getting tested that i clearly am not vaccinated which is again a privacy issue so i was asking

00:35:21.040 them questions around this uh they they didn't have answers i also asked questions about like

00:35:26.880 is there any consideration for natural immunity is there any redeployment or option to continue

00:35:34.960 working from home while we kind of figure this out right because if you work from home right or

00:35:39.040 if you're in a job that's a permanent work from home job then then really like why do you need

00:35:42.880 to agree to your testing and mask use if if you're going to be at home um and then ultimately like

00:35:47.520 what happens if i don't agree right like are you making testing and mask use a condition of

00:35:52.560 employment right like and if i don't follow will i be terminated um right so i was asking all these

00:35:57.920 questions i thought they were very valid i still think they're very valid questions and i wasn't

00:36:02.320 getting clear answers and i said well look it's not that i won't agree or complete the attestation

00:36:06.560 i just i really want to know what it is that i'm signing what it is that i'm agreeing to

00:36:11.920 and what the implications are if i don't agree right and they wouldn't they would not respond

00:36:17.280 like they sorry that's not true they would respond but they would not address my questions directly

00:36:22.400 they would just say it's for health and safety we need this information to make decisions around

00:36:27.040 policy um you know we the answers that you want are in the faqs they weren't um so it was just

00:36:33.360 kind of this back and forth and similar to the conversations i had with them in october it was

00:36:36.880 just a circular conversation right where it was you know i was just kind of met with the same

00:36:42.320 talking points um and when i started to get smarter and i was putting in writing being like

00:36:46.560 please respond to this like just like you know help put my mind at ease or or even if it's an

00:36:51.280 answer i don't want just confirm um and ultimately when i kept pushing they they said no like they

00:36:57.440 they said this is a condition of employment there there is no option to not complete the

00:37:02.160 attestation and there is no option not to agree and then ultimately if you don't agree to these

00:37:08.000 new terms and these new rules that we're defining placed on unpaid leave and subsequently dismissed

00:37:13.360 regardless if you're or not so so that was really like kind of where it kind of brought us into the

00:37:20.560 december time frame um of all this back and forth and again just the their inability to just respond

00:37:26.640 to my what i still again they're very valid questions uh they just wouldn't respond and it

00:37:32.000 was just kind of like ignoring it to the point of me obviously feeling very unsettled losing sleep

00:37:37.520 um you know under tremendous amount of stress not knowing if i was going to lose my job or not

00:37:42.160 uh it led to me even toronto i'd lived there for 10 years so i moved there when i was 19

00:37:48.080 uh for school i actually was there more than 10 years because i left in my 30s

00:37:52.240 having to move back to my parents house uh out of toronto because i was like what if i get fired

00:37:56.080 and i got rent to pay i got bills i can't afford this like this is a difficult decision so i

00:38:00.720 effectively uprooted my life moved back home left all my friends in toronto um you know in addition

00:38:06.240 to all the other stuff that the passports were kind of causing right no gym no restaurants no

00:38:10.640 hockey no sports um so yeah that kind of led me to december um so you know pause there because

00:38:16.640 Because we can get into the rest of the timeline and what led to the dismissal.

00:38:20.320 But maybe, in case I've missed anything, you want to ask some questions there?

00:38:24.040 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:38:26.500 I brought this on screen for a second.

00:38:28.900 You belong at CIBC.

00:38:30.600 We value diversity and thought, background, and experience as we strive to make an impact

00:38:35.460 in the communities we serve.

00:38:38.720 Yeah, you know, it's funny how all the values on their website, it's like, well, if you're

00:38:45.340 vaccinated like this doesn't apply to you you're you're uh yeah so it's yeah like a lot of these

00:38:51.880 large corporate companies like they'll have their their values and and i think most people can kind

00:38:57.160 of know that they're they're they're not they don't always live and breathe breathe them and

00:39:01.220 certainly seeing how how my situation was handled i certainly don't think they they did um but you

00:39:06.560 know at least there are there definitely are people within the bank within other banks who

00:39:10.520 were good people you know good colleagues that i enjoyed working with good teams i thought we did

00:39:14.960 good work but yeah it's it's it's sad to see that you know they they plaster these values all over

00:39:19.480 but they they won't live them right and again it was not that i wouldn't complete it i just i wasn't

00:39:25.700 going to agree without just some valid questions they say you need to agree to testing as a

00:39:30.240 condition of employment and i said who pays for it and they said you might have to and i'm like

00:39:35.820 okay so then if i'm paying for it if i don't have a test that week could i get disciplined for it if

00:39:41.200 if they're out of stock what do i do like all these like you're just thinking ahead right like

00:39:45.380 what are all these implications and they wouldn't answer so like how could someone agree right to

00:39:50.600 terms that are vague and unclear right it's it's like contract law 101 right if you're making

00:39:57.340 amendments or creating a contract it has to be clear and unambiguous like you can't have a vague

00:40:01.720 language in a contract that's not how it works particularly if you're making making changes um

00:40:06.320 so yeah it was honestly it was really just bizarre uh the whole thing and i still can't wrap my head

00:40:12.960 around it that they they actually operated this way and their lack of uh communication um their

00:40:18.900 lack of understanding or empathy like i was telling them that this is causing a tremendous

00:40:22.420 amount of stress uh that i was losing sleep over it right not sure if i was going to lose my job

00:40:27.480 that i worked you know pretty tirelessly over 10 years of my career to get to um so that kind of

00:40:32.320 brought us to December. Sonor, do you want me to keep going with the timeline here or before you

00:40:37.760 come? Let me just jump in here for a sec. So for those who might just be joining us,

00:40:43.100 this is Austin Sisko. He is a HR professional. He knows a lot about employment laws. Well,

00:40:49.040 he essentially was working at CIBC and was bringing up just some very valid questions

00:40:52.720 when it comes to the vaccine mandate. And of course, there was this attestation that was

00:40:59.540 given to employees which is essentially a certified legal document to say not just and this is kind of

00:41:07.480 an important thing that we kind of skimmed over like it was presented as hey can you just fill

00:41:12.380 this out to let us know if you got jabbed or not or if you prefer not to disclose but you noticed

00:41:18.300 you know being an HR professional being somebody who's looking at the details that um it looks like

00:41:23.360 I actually or whoever signs this or agrees to this also might be agreeing to a bunch of other kind of

00:41:28.760 stuff in the fine print i.e you agree to have a booster shot no matter what happens in the future

00:41:33.800 you agree to any health health and safety um guideline in the future um and the major important

00:41:41.560 issue there is if you do confirm this attestation even if you didn't get vaccinated you might be

00:41:47.320 confirming oh uh yeah we're gonna fire you for cause um so you don't get any uh severance or

00:41:54.280 anything like that yeah but uh so i guess just on that that note right which is some of the like

00:42:00.600 i'm just looking at some of the notes that i had sent them and what i was asking um right like i

00:42:05.640 was even asking them about like what is the medical exemption process right who manages it for for all

00:42:10.280 they know that i could have had a medical disability that i just did not want to disclose

00:42:14.840 but i was curious about what the process was response to that um and i again i wasn't getting

00:42:21.080 straight answers so i specifically said um if anything can be confirmed i would like to know

00:42:26.280 in writing if adherence to or enhance the protocols specifically testing is now a condition of

00:42:30.920 employment and what the repercussions are for not following the guidelines you shared that an unpaid

00:42:35.400 leave is a likely outcome which i feel is constructive dismissal if this is the approach

00:42:39.800 then proper notice of the changes to the conditions of employment must be provided right so anytime you

00:42:43.880 make changes to someone's conditions of employment you need to give proper notice right so it would

00:42:48.840 go even if let's say you worked in scarborough and now we needed to move you to the mississauga

00:42:54.040 office that's a change right you're changing the location of where someone needs to show up to work

00:42:58.280 you would need to give them notice right you need to give them three six twelve months notice

00:43:02.840 possibly depending on their tenure of this change and and when you make those changes it has to be

00:43:07.800 very clear right there can't be any or if it's not clear you answer the questions which they weren't

00:43:12.120 doing right so um so and i told them i felt it's constructive dismissal which basically just for

00:43:18.200 the listeners uh constructive dismissal is effectively um when an employer changes the

00:43:23.560 conditions or working arrangements such that the employee feels they have to resign so an obvious

00:43:29.480 example would be if i was like a senior executive leader you know managing a large team working in

00:43:34.520 a nice downtown office and then they stripped me of my team and they moved to like the basement in

00:43:39.400 north york and they said this is where you got to work now right it's it's demoting me it's kind of

00:43:44.600 changing my my level of responsibility um so i could see is you could make the argument that hey

00:43:49.800 they're changing these conditions which is forcing me to resign right so that's what i thought

00:43:54.840 constructive dismissal was um but ultimately yep and constructive dismissal is like at the fault

00:44:02.200 of the employer and is it not in that they made these changes and i had no other option but to

00:44:10.040 resign like you forced me to resign right or forced me to quit um but but this is something

00:44:15.560 that you can like in in terms of litigation like you can kind of say hey yeah yeah so this is yes

00:44:24.360 yeah you can make that claim and go after them for constructive dismissal you can go after them for

00:44:28.120 wrongful dismissal as well uh depending on the nature of how you were ultimately terminated uh

00:44:33.400 with constructive dismissal the work the individual usually has to like resign and then present the

00:44:38.200 the case that you forced me to resign, right? I didn't do that. I did not resign. I just kept

00:44:43.420 asking questions. I kept exercising my rights. I kept doing what I thought was the right thing

00:44:49.240 and the professional thing to do, which was, hey, I have concerns about what you're asking me. I

00:44:53.320 have valid questions. Can you just please answer the questions? And if you can't, then I can't

00:44:57.820 agree, right? And again, this whole thing is while I was working from home, right? And yes,

00:45:04.400 there were talks about returning to the office, right? So that gets us to kind of December. So

00:45:09.340 maybe I'll just kind of finish off the timeline here. Before we go into that, we've kind of gone

00:45:13.220 over everything that's wrong with the policies that they were kind of pushing down. You were

00:45:17.260 asking questions they weren't answering. We'll get to kind of the final part of the chapter

00:45:22.420 where you ended up being terminated and you tried to escalate things. But before that,

00:45:27.400 tell me about, because you mentioned that there was a Bankers for Freedom group. I wanted to ask

00:45:33.440 like who else were you talking to who worked at CIBC

00:45:38.340 or worked at other major banks?

00:45:39.940 So like, and what did that look like?

00:45:42.200 And tell me there must've been a culture of not like secrecy,

00:45:45.840 but a culture of like, you know,

00:45:47.060 we can't really be having this conversation

00:45:49.340 with that publicly.

00:45:50.180 There was definitely a culture of fear.

00:45:51.200 People were quite worried.

00:45:53.940 So I guess to answer your question is that

00:45:56.060 there were some people internally, like colleagues of mine,

00:45:59.720 who I spoke with privately about my situation,

00:46:02.020 looking for advice.

00:46:03.440 uh they they kind of understood uh they they understood my concerns about the attestation a

00:46:09.120 few of them were like oh i never read it that way but yeah maybe you're right like maybe it is

00:46:13.680 maybe you are agreeing to future stuff including boosters and they said oh i never thought of it

00:46:17.600 that way they just thought of it as a hey we just need some information we're doing it for health

00:46:21.760 and safety just submit your attestation and you'll be good um so i had some some colleagues empathize

00:46:27.520 but none willing to speak up either right to say hey like i also don't agree with this or i don't

00:46:34.080 i suspect there were some but i think most were afraid i did not want to speak up we did not have

00:46:41.280 very good we call it esat employee satisfactory surveys we did not have very good esat results

00:46:48.720 within hr at the time primarily that was kind of a culture of just not being kept in the loop with

00:46:55.200 stuff right not being informed in advance people were getting frustrated so i didn't really have

00:46:59.440 in terms of my actual network of people who knew me for me uh within the bank i did not have many

00:47:04.800 people aware of my situation or many people on my side uh but fortunately there there was a large

00:47:11.120 uh percentage of people uh within you know cibc and other banks who were connecting offline right

00:47:16.880 so we were connecting through groups on telegram instagram facebook wherever right just saying hey

00:47:21.680 hey guys, is this happening to you? What are we going to do? Should we get a lawyer? Should we

00:47:25.760 challenge it? Should we speak up? I'm afraid to lose my job. What if I speak up and then they

00:47:31.100 fire me? This was coming from people who all had a different life experience than me. Some of them

00:47:38.660 had kids. Some of them had mortgages where they had a different line in the sand with me than I

00:47:44.760 did. My line in the sand was I'm not going to complete the attestation because I'm not going

00:47:48.840 to like play the game and agree that they should even be able to ask it because it's not required

00:47:53.180 for the job so i'm not going to agree to that i'm not going to agree to testing or mask use

00:47:56.920 um if it means getting terminated where some of them they said well hey i can still keep my job

00:48:02.400 even if i'm unvaccinated but i have to agree to testing and mask use which none of them were

00:48:06.960 comfortable with they felt coerced but some of them felt like they couldn't afford to not have

00:48:11.520 a paycheck right like it directly impacts your livelihood if you get terminated and if you have

00:48:16.500 kids you have a mortgage like i said you gotta some of them just had to comply right so we we

00:48:22.740 connected with people we we explored different options we spoke to lawyers about what to do

00:48:26.900 we should do ultimately a lot of people just kind of went their own path with what they felt was

00:48:31.940 best for them which i respect um but certainly there was a culture of fear uh of worry like

00:48:40.660 like tears on calls people being upset like like oh my god my life's gonna be what do i do

00:48:45.940 right so it was it was a very stressful time uh and and certainly myself not getting the answers

00:48:51.700 and knowing kind of my rights and being in hr i still couldn't figure things out so i can only

00:48:57.380 imagine those who maybe weren't aware of how the interworkings go and what the rights are and how

00:49:02.260 they can escalate right so it was it was honestly a shitty time uh for a lot of people but i met some

00:49:07.540 really great people throughout it i have a good community of folks i've i connect with now um

00:49:11.860 Um, but yeah, there, there was lots and not just within CIBC, but other, other banks,

00:49:17.140 you know, we would meet at certain protests, right.

00:49:19.380 Just meet there in person, get to meet them.

00:49:21.320 Um, but ultimately, like I said, everyone kind of had their own line in the sand with

00:49:25.860 what they were willing to do to either keep their job or to hold firm.

00:49:29.440 And other people had different, like some people were in the office, right.

00:49:32.580 Some of them were bank tellers, right.

00:49:33.820 Which they have a whole, they're in the office.

00:49:35.940 It's a whole different ball game than me who worked from home.

00:49:38.560 Um, but, uh, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question.

00:49:41.860 Yeah, no, definitely. And, uh, and on top of all this, you are a high performing employee. You were telling me how you met your, your, not your targets, but your, you had a sort of, um, bonus incentive. And even though you were getting let go working at home, they still gave you a raise before you go.

00:50:02.400 so like for anyone listening if they're like oh there's more to the scenes or austin was a bad

00:50:08.000 employee or he brought people the wrong way and there was some other reason i never have once

00:50:12.720 been disciplined in my entire career i've never even had a like a off the record hey like we're

00:50:17.580 worried you can't do this sort of chat i've always been professional i've always felt like i've done

00:50:21.740 the right thing i performed to expectations i've gotten my bonus every year so these emails that

00:50:27.820 you're sending your higher ups you're not yeah you're not posting a bunch of like alex jones

00:50:31.480 like links and stuff like this like all caps hey it's there there's i was asking them like like i

00:50:40.580 said why is natural immunity not discussed i had covid like and i've had antibody tests so like

00:50:46.160 when we talk about that and the fact that i'm even having to ask them about it doesn't make

00:50:50.380 any sense because i can do the job at home right now that's the whole thing that's bizarre right

00:50:55.120 is that the job was being done from home if if the if the virus or if in a pandemic that you know

00:51:01.120 if the virus is that deadly that it requires your employer to impose you know the most extreme

00:51:07.000 measures against their staff right because it's so dangerous why would you even entertain bringing

00:51:12.260 them into the office when they can do the job from home right like when we're talking health

00:51:16.300 and safety like logically it just falls apart it doesn't make any sense right like why would

00:51:20.420 you even expose them to it yeah right vaccinated included like like let them stay home too right

00:51:26.120 and i said that there's like you could test i'm like or you could test everyone right then you

00:51:29.720 know hey everyone going into the office gets tested right and they said it was a logistics

00:51:35.080 and a supply chain issue right that they couldn't get enough tests i'm like well that's not my fault

00:51:40.800 like so what we're gonna put more people at risk in the office because you can't afford testing or

00:51:46.300 can't get enough lie like just let people even even even by their logic it doesn't really make

00:51:51.360 sense oh so yeah so so again like once i found out that you know completely failing to complete

00:51:57.980 attestation was going to lead to uh um unpaid leave i said well at this point it's coercion

00:52:05.180 that's a threat uh i'm under duress and i can't consent right like you you've basically said

00:52:11.580 agree to these terms right which include testing mask use etc and future potentially future

00:52:16.300 policies agree like sign here agree uh or be placed on unpaid leave right so to me like that's

00:52:23.020 that's a threat like how could I you know reasonably agree to that again without them

00:52:28.060 answering the questions I had um right with with an unpaid leave looming over my head all right

00:52:33.340 so let's get into the the final chapter here so essentially you're asking these questions about

00:52:38.540 this kind of mandate that's coming down on all the employees and one of your questions was hey

00:52:43.660 uh am I gonna lose my job if I don't you know consent to this and you didn't get a clear answer

00:52:48.940 on that and if i'm not mistaken you were saying that uh you know there's the mandate or sorry

00:52:54.720 there is the deadline to submit this attestation to confirm whether you're vaxxed or not uh that

00:53:00.840 deadline passed three weeks or more and then you get an email because you're asking questions about

00:53:06.760 this you finally get an email from like a higher up vp who's like oh yeah you're gonna lose your

00:53:11.480 job if you don't do this and this is and this is after the deadline i'm filling this out so you

00:53:16.540 finally get an answer right so deadline passed on october 31st right leading up to that deadline

00:53:23.220 there was no confirmation what that would mean if you didn't complete it if you if you said i'd

00:53:29.040 choose not to disclose like there was no communication and they said okay we'll let

00:53:32.560 you know what these policies are so eventually those policies came out again i found out about

00:53:37.000 the policies through our normal communication channels they didn't reach back out to me to say

00:53:41.760 hey you know i understand you had some concerns here's what's going to be happening here's what

00:53:45.500 it applies to you? Do you want to talk about it? Nothing like that. I had to follow up with them

00:53:49.240 saying, hey, I'm hearing that, you know, there's going to be policies around testing and mask use

00:53:53.800 and this and that. I'm like, I'm still not comfortable signing the attestation. And then

00:53:57.600 one of my executives said, completing the attestation is a condition of employment as

00:54:02.100 is adhering to our health and safety protocols. The option to indicate you prefer not to answer

00:54:06.260 on the attestation with respect to your status, but not completing the attestation is not an

00:54:11.040 option and not following the protocols is also not an option i think it was as a reminder the

00:54:16.080 mandatory uh announcement was made on october 20th this year three months ago but again that was vague

00:54:21.680 so they they said um and then they said they can understand the situation is causing me stress

00:54:27.680 uh and then they said let me address the first point about completing the attestation but they

00:54:32.640 ignored every other question i had right so i it just became this back and forth of me saying hey

00:54:38.400 you know i appreciate you saying this but you're still not answering my questions i've asked them

00:54:43.280 i can't consent um you know i said um i understand the attestation has a section to say prefer not to

00:54:50.080 disclose but by responding in this fashion still stipulates that i agree to protocols

00:54:54.560 slash requirements to follow which are still unclear how is one expected to agree to future

00:54:59.280 protocols that are not announced in detail valid question right so it was just this back and forth

00:55:05.360 and then basically um early december uh i got a notice from a generic mailbox uh basically stating

00:55:13.920 that you know my completion of the attestation is overdue if i don't uh agree uh to the to these

00:55:20.640 terms and complete it i may be placed and again they started using again very um unsettling

00:55:27.680 language because it wasn't definitive it was always like you may be or you could right so

00:55:32.480 So they said, you'll receive a formal discipline letter and subject to added requirements,

00:55:36.760 including an unpaid leave of absence in January 10.

00:55:39.680 So finally, they did say you will be placed on unpaid leave.

00:55:43.000 And the reason why it was January for the unpaid leave, just to give context to people

00:55:48.280 listening, was in November and December, those who are working from home, the higher-ups

00:55:54.880 were working on a return to office plan.

00:55:57.760 So they were trying to figure out when is everyone coming back to the office?

00:56:00.480 so for hr they said you know we think everyone's going to come back in january that was the target

00:56:05.680 so there in their mind it was hey you need to agree to these policies right because you're

00:56:10.880 going to have to wear a mask in the office and we be tested to come into the office so they said if

00:56:15.280 you don't agree to that come january when everyone comes back into the office you will be that

00:56:21.360 right you will have not agreed and you'll either show up untested unmasked and that's a violation

00:56:26.160 as per their definition or i don't show up to work and that's like in subordination right so

00:56:30.320 like you can see their logic right that's why they're pushing toward this this deadline of

00:56:33.920 january to say hey you need to complete the attestation or you go on unpaid leave because

00:56:39.120 of the return because of the return to office coming up that was right because they right

00:56:43.680 their view was that hey you need to do testing when we feel you need tested to come into the

00:56:47.520 office and if you haven't agreed to the testing then then you're violating the health and safety

00:56:52.560 protocols that we've defined yeah and to clear and to clear it up for our everyone listening

00:56:57.520 everyone was pretty well you said 80 of people were working from home throughout this time like

00:57:04.480 we're working at home very few people were were in the office through the pandemic

00:57:08.880 uh even the the public health guidance that we all heard for every industry was

00:57:13.760 if you are in a position that can be done from home must be doing it at home right like only

00:57:20.000 only jobs that should be done in the office or on site are jobs that literally can't be done

00:57:24.400 elsewhere right like a nurse can't be a nurse at home a bank teller can't be a teller at home

00:57:29.120 right so majority of people were working remotely right so they they had this return to office date

00:57:34.400 set for january and that's kind of what the push was to say hey you need to complete the attestation

00:57:38.880 by december 31st or you'll be placed on unpaid leave so that that was kind of their their final

00:57:44.720 ultimatum they said well again you're asking me sign here and agree to this or else i'm like that's

00:57:50.140 that's a threat that's coercion uh at this point i was under a tremendous amount of kind of

00:57:54.960 psychological uh stress you know not sleeping very well not eating very well um just not again

00:58:01.400 because it was more frustrating i think just the lack of of communication right that they just

00:58:06.600 mainly were ignoring my questions which again very valid and it sounds like also you know you have a

00:58:13.500 job to do as an hr professional and it's doing my job through all this and and on top of that

00:58:20.480 you are you are taking the time to craft these emails towards your higher-ups to to ask these

00:58:27.920 questions as well and that's kind of its own effort in and of itself and instead of kind of

00:58:32.960 being rewarded with answers it's just kind of being deferred deflecting the answers and then

00:58:38.580 you get a robo email that's like complete this or you will lose your job yeah so so the ironic part

00:58:45.980 was the the announcement about my unpaid leave happened early december uh at this point in time

00:58:51.440 when that announcement came the plan was still for me and my colleagues in hr to return to the

00:58:55.920 office in january uh mid-december a corporate wide decision all the banks pretty much every

00:59:02.380 industry said hey anyone who's returning to the office we need to halt omicron's kind of out of

00:59:06.400 control we're not going to expose our employees to that risk all return to office plans are going

00:59:11.040 to be pushed out to the spring so they said hey austin you're not coming back in january and i

00:59:15.780 said oh that's great at least that buys us time right because like if i'm not returning to the

00:59:20.360 office then i'm not violating these policies because i if i'm not going into the office i

00:59:26.100 don't need to be tested i don't need to be masked um so maybe we can spend more time kind of

00:59:31.460 go going into the questions understanding my concerns or even if we wind up at the exact same

00:59:37.220 you know um point where we disagree and it leads to my dismissal at least it's like three months

00:59:42.980 from now or at least when it's you know all of the logic is flawed at least it's when it means

00:59:47.220 their own kind of justification right so i was like there's no there's no no reason to terminate

00:59:52.020 me now or put me on unpaid leave right no one's going back into the office yeah and they said no

00:59:56.180 we're still going to proceed yeah we're still going to be on unpaid leave in in uh in january

01:00:00.580 and i thought but for for what right like yes you want me to complete the attestation i have

01:00:05.260 questions about it but even what i'm agreeing to in that attestation will not be in place in january

01:00:10.480 it'll be in place you know when we come back in in may or april or whatever i think they're being

01:00:15.120 so they still decided to proceed and i thought that was like that was insane right it makes no

01:00:20.460 sense uh particularly as you mentioned um in december i got more than my target bonus for

01:00:26.600 doing a good job and performing well uh i got a raise that was effective january uh as well right

01:00:32.460 an annual raise for doing a good job um and and we were short-staffed and and our clients desperately

01:00:38.740 needed like i say clients i mean like in the people i supported internally they needed help

01:00:43.600 right and when they found out i was leaving they were like what like who's going to cover for you

01:00:46.980 there's been so much turnover and change within hr like this is this is going to be disruptive to us

01:00:51.780 like why can't they just let you work from home and i was like i i don't know i don't have a good

01:00:56.580 answer for you on that so um when i found out um that they would be um kind of proceeding with my

01:01:06.080 unpaid leave uh i i felt like i still need to escalate this this is not right at this point

01:01:12.400 you know when you've repeatedly asked someone um to agree to to new terms of employment

01:01:19.220 and you failed to respond to their questions you blatantly disregarded their their queries about

01:01:25.360 you know the legality of it how this impacts me what am i agreeing to right like the the responses

01:01:30.780 were like to me it's it's like psychological harassment right you're you're at the point

01:01:35.060 where it's sign here or be threatened with unpaid leave or threatened with dismissal

01:01:39.020 when the the employee is just asking valid questions and they're just disregarding it

01:01:42.840 right like like you can imagine it's it's like sign here sign here or you're fired sign here

01:01:46.460 sign here or you're fired but you have questions and they go unresponded to you so i told them like

01:01:50.720 this is like psychological harassment right it's causing it's causing me to lose sleep i'm

01:01:55.280 incredibly stressed feeling more anxious you know i had to uproot my life because of it so all these

01:01:59.980 things that were incredibly impactful to me at the time um and i thought okay like where else can i

01:02:04.880 go right like i've tried my one-ups i've tried with my higher-ups like my executive team didn't

01:02:10.380 go anywhere um so i i did like i've kind of a last-ditch effort to maybe say okay maybe the

01:02:15.260 ombudsman right can deal with this um right so the ombudsman should be an impartial kind of body

01:02:21.780 within a corporation that that basically is there as kind of a fail safe to investigate any wrongdoing

01:02:27.680 misconduct fraud you know embezzlement you know harassment whatever it is um if you need someone

01:02:33.400 who's kind of impartial because they're not supposed to report into the same structure of

01:02:36.660 the company they would report you know to the board of directors or someone very senior that's

01:02:41.240 you know, appear to the CEO type of thing.

01:02:43.420 And this is literally why an ombudsman exists, right?

01:02:47.520 To hold-

01:02:49.140 They deal with employee escalations,

01:02:51.140 they deal with client escalations.

01:02:52.480 Like let's say if you're a client

01:02:53.540 and you felt that something sketchy was going on

01:02:56.300 with who you were dealing with internally,

01:02:57.900 like they were breaking the law,

01:02:59.080 they were doing something wrong, whatever.

01:03:01.280 You go to the ombudsman, right?

01:03:02.400 And they're supposed to be kind of like that third party.

01:03:04.360 You can Google what an ombudsman is,

01:03:05.880 what their function is in most companies.

01:03:08.000 So I went to them, right?

01:03:08.840 again if i went the normal channel that i would for any other type of harassment complaint or any

01:03:14.280 issue it would go to hr and to er which is employee relations but the problem is is hr myself and er

01:03:21.800 reports to the same people that i'm having the issues with right so they're not a they're not

01:03:26.520 an impartial right if you're asking you know a team to investigate the very people that you report

01:03:32.280 to it's it's like you know it's like if i got asked to investigate my boss it's kind of like

01:03:36.680 there's a direct conflict there right i'm not gonna i'm not gonna go out my boss because i

01:03:41.080 could risk losing my job right they're they're not impartial so i went to the ombudsman uh just said

01:03:46.840 guys like what like what are we doing here this doesn't make sense they're not answering my

01:03:51.320 questions this is psychological harassment they're just saying sign here or else um like can you just

01:03:56.440 look into it someone third party who's not involved in the decision making some guidance

01:04:01.560 um they met with me on christmas eve that was the only date that they could make to meet with

01:04:06.360 me which is not ideal right you go ahead to christmas you know rehashing this again again

01:04:11.000 i was having to explain like here's everything i've said here's all my concerns right here's

01:04:15.320 here's all my unanswered questions my long list of unvalid unanswered questions every question

01:04:21.160 i've asked and here's either the answers they've given or just no answer at all and even the

01:04:26.200 answers they gave were often like not really answers right they were just the political

01:04:30.680 kind of you know circular type of response that you would get when you ask them the same

01:04:34.040 all the other banks are doing it health and safety we need to keep everyone safe legal would

01:04:39.080 have looked into it i'm sure you know wouldn't have been decided upon if legal didn't sign off

01:04:43.320 and all this other stuff and and right so it was this thing so ombudsman met and they said well

01:04:47.080 look it's not for us to investigate uh employee relations special services needs to right so

01:04:51.960 they're a dedicated team that deals with you know harassment discrimination the more sensitive type

01:04:55.960 of complaints uh and i said well they can't investigate a harassment complaint like they

01:05:01.160 they report to the people that i'm saying are making the policies that are harassing me right

01:05:04.920 that are putting me in this weird position of sign here or else sign here or else um but lo

01:05:11.160 and behold they they still did uh they still put me they still had them investigate uh and basically

01:05:18.120 they did not investigate they just said reviewed the facts and they said this is clear and obvious

01:05:23.320 not to be harassment um we sorry you feel that way right this is just verbatim um we sorry you

01:05:28.760 feel that way but you know we're still proceeding we still felt this is justified and you're going

01:05:32.760 to be put on leave right i said but you even if that's the decision you made like the person who

01:05:38.040 was responding to me it's a direct conflict of interest so that that's a whole other thing in

01:05:42.120 terms of um kind of litigation and and what banks and obligations that they have to do with respect

01:05:48.040 to harassment complaints that i think that they've failed to do but ultimately that that that escalation

01:05:53.480 went nowhere um but at least it's documented on their end that i did submit the complaint that i

01:05:59.240 did again share my concerns and then ultimately um the first week of january came which was

01:06:05.880 ironically uh that my last day of employment at the bank would have been january 7th i think it

01:06:11.960 was a friday um it was my third year anniversary like the date like three years and on my last day

01:06:19.960 just to kind of give you a sense of the the tone deafness that's not really the word but just how

01:06:24.360 tone deaf the organization was was in my team meeting of me my boss you know my dozen colleagues

01:06:29.720 or so or however many were on the call uh my boss recognized me in front of my colleagues for

01:06:35.880 completing three years of service knowing that monday i would be on unpaid leave wow so so she

01:06:41.240 goes hey you know i just want to recognize that austin's been here for three years and what a

01:06:44.520 great accomplishment that is but everyone's clapping and colleagues like oh it's such a

01:06:47.960 a pleasure working with you here's to more three more years or you know all these like nice accolades

01:06:53.240 like hey it's been great working and he's being on persons next week as well do they talk about

01:06:57.480 that part how you're gonna get that go right and they just said but they knew like oh my boss knew

01:07:02.860 for sure because she knew at that point like again she was not making the decision she was just having

01:07:06.800 to execute and do her job so i don't fault her like it's you know been there for a long time

01:07:11.540 it still feels very icky and kind of inhuman oh i just didn't i thought it was a bad taste of like

01:07:16.600 Why are you calling out? I've been here for three years knowing that on Monday I'm going to be on unpaid leave and everyone's going to start asking, like, where did Austin go? What happened? Like, where is he? Is he coming back? Like, we need help. We're short staffed. Like, who's going to cover him? Who's going to cover his portfolio? Right. It's a thousand employees or so that I was covering.

01:07:33.620 um so it was just that and then i got put on unpaid leave on the monday

01:07:38.440 and then basically from there i got two warning letters while on unpaid leave saying you've

01:07:45.800 continued to not complete the attestation and agree to these new terms all right including

01:07:50.540 testing masks etc uh which we feel violates our code of conduct and following the law they you

01:07:56.520 know they list all the policies that they say i'm violating and then ultimately it was terminated

01:08:01.180 for cause uh in february february 3rd what's the cause insubordination right their cause was

01:08:10.620 insubordination and not adhering to their requirement to maintain a healthy and safe

01:08:15.900 workplace which again i'm like i'm working from home so i haven't even violated the policies

01:08:21.340 they're referencing had had we all gone back into the office in january i could see them saying well

01:08:26.780 you didn't agree you need to be tested to come you didn't do that so now you violated it but

01:08:31.980 at the time when they said i was violating it i was working at home right like not no one in my

01:08:35.900 team had went gone back in so it was almost like being reprimanded for future violations right um

01:08:42.780 so was it terminated for cause and for anyone who's listening who's unfamiliar with the different

01:08:47.980 types of terminations there's effectively termination for cause and termination without

01:08:53.420 cause i have done i can't even count how many terminations without cause in my career like

01:08:59.100 being the hr person delivering the news and usually that's like corporate restructuring

01:09:03.420 layoffs outsourcing right the employee didn't do anything wrong they just were in the wrong role

01:09:08.220 at the wrong time and we cut their role but in termination without cause you still get severance

01:09:14.700 right you're still going to get payment right for years of service to compensate you until you find

01:09:18.700 a job uh you're still eligible for employment insurance benefits through the government if you

01:09:23.420 lose your job through no fault of your own in a without cause termination

01:09:27.340 but a for cause or with cause termination it's effectively the capital punishment of employment

01:09:33.420 law right it is reserved for the most egregious actions by an employee right assault right you go

01:09:40.060 watch a colleague or regis harassment or sexual harassment that's termination for cause you steal

01:09:46.460 discrimination for cause you do fraud right like things that are very severe and and and

01:09:51.820 determining cause and actually terminating someone for cause is a very very high threshold and high

01:09:57.820 bar to meet and i've only done a handful of them handful of them in my career where someone employee

01:10:02.460 did something so egregious that we terminate them for cause and the reason we you know you

01:10:07.260 say it's capital punishment is because it's if you get terminated for a cause you get nothing you get

01:10:13.340 no severance but you get no payment from your employer everything stops the day you get terminated

01:10:18.140 and you are ineligible for employment insurance so all the ei that have paid into all those years

01:10:23.420 i couldn't even apply for ei right because that's kind of the punishment it was you did something or

01:10:27.660 ought to have known that it was going to be bad you did a bad thing and this is your punishment

01:10:31.740 which for egregious acts it's kind of reasonable right if you so if you were a pervert and you were

01:10:37.260 sexually harassing people in the office and doing really nasty things um right then you deserve to

01:10:41.980 to be terminated without pay right that that's kind of assuming you can prove cause right so

01:10:46.660 i was terminated for cause no no payment no ei nothing just uh kind of on my own to look for

01:10:53.240 work that's crazy so essentially uh asking questions as an hr professional about a vaccine

01:11:02.120 mandate is is now on the same par as a sexual harassment in a way they're kind of yeah equating

01:11:08.080 effective right like they equated it to that when you know even when you think of termination for

01:11:13.760 cause you have to look at like were there reasonable alternatives and and throughout

01:11:17.680 the entire you know from when they made the announcement mandate to when i was terminated

01:11:22.480 there were so many simple alternatives that that could have at least you know um minimized my

01:11:28.880 concerns right if they decided to test everyone i'd say okay that's not you know it's still

01:11:33.440 invasive i don't really agree but at least it's not discriminatory because you're you're saying

01:11:37.200 hey greg you're vaccinated you do test austin you do a test right or if they made it voluntary

01:11:41.840 right to say hey if you want to come back into the office you need to be tested to be on site

01:11:46.640 which sure fair but you can choose to work from home right like because you can work from home

01:11:50.960 your job can be done from home um right so there were so many opportunities or just to say hey

01:11:56.640 you're not coming back to the office yet let's just pause things are changing fast and ultimately

01:12:02.560 what's ironic is all of the policies that i was raising concerns about and was not agreeing to

01:12:09.360 right the mask use the testing that sort of stuff um were dropped and i think april or may

01:12:16.400 uh you can probably find it online anyone who can google they can figure the exact date

01:12:20.160 um and my colleagues i think went back to the office in like april so there might have been

01:12:24.000 like a one month period that they could have just let me work from home and then they dropped

01:12:27.280 everything right and you know there's a reason why they dropped everything because it didn't make

01:12:31.040 sense it wasn't really serving its purpose is creating a health and you know a safe work

01:12:36.080 environment for their staff um so that's yeah that's kind of where it led me and and it's it's

01:12:41.280 the whole thing is unfortunate i thought i was doing the right thing with um raising my concerns

01:12:46.240 i thought i had valid questions i thought i was professional throughout um and i just it wasn't

01:12:51.840 getting that and it led to you know like you know the most extreme form of termination uh which is

01:12:57.520 it's still just mind boggling to me.

01:13:00.080 Absolutely. And Austin, good on you for,

01:13:03.360 for speaking up and, and for standing up for what you believe in, because,

01:13:08.340 well, we need more of that.

01:13:10.900 And I think you're going to be sleeping better at night than the people who had

01:13:14.900 to, to terminate you because you, yeah, you kind of, you're,

01:13:20.560 you're had a question, you had a burning sort of,

01:13:22.780 this doesn't sit right with me and you were kind of coming forward to,

01:13:26.040 to voice that.

01:13:26.700 yeah and what's ironic is is is although i'm probably a rehire status no right if you terminate

01:13:33.260 someone for cause you put them as a no rehire which means they'll never work at that company

01:13:36.660 again but what's ironic is despite what had happened with my disagreements in the nature of

01:13:41.260 my exit as of today i would be eligible to apply and work in the same job i had before there was

01:13:47.560 never an effort to have me come back to to right the wrongs i even told them via emails after my

01:13:54.600 dismissal saying guys like it's i know this is what you think now but my view is that as time

01:14:00.000 goes on it will look even more noxious and silly what we did but it's never too late to do the

01:14:04.760 right thing like we can fix this like i i will accept an apology i'll accept them trying to

01:14:09.960 right the wrong and do you know correct themselves in doing the right thing but no efforts are made

01:14:15.120 right they've just there's not going to be an admitted admission of guilt or any kind of

01:14:20.160 acknowledgement that what they did was wrong or maybe not the right decision which to me is really

01:14:24.360 unfortunate because like i i for me as a person and kind of how i am like if i mess up i do

01:14:28.620 something wrong i'll say it um we all do things in certain times in our life that we think is the

01:14:34.100 right thing and after we look back we're like yeah you know maybe not the right thing um but uh yeah

01:14:39.800 no no efforts on their part and it just it's ironic that i i could i could still be working

01:14:44.780 there uh if they just let me work from home but uh it kind of brought us to where we are now which

01:14:49.800 you know i think in the long run you know maybe for the best uh i i would not have been able to

01:14:55.340 sleep comfortably if i um if i agreed to things that i really felt uncomfortable agreeing to and

01:15:01.160 having that kind of compromise you know for my own values and morals just was not the right thing

01:15:06.600 yeah yeah what was your egregious if like what was your egregious offense it was being a diligent

01:15:12.360 hr professional right like i i just i just asked questions any the questions i asked again like

01:15:20.640 the reason coming on this with you is was like all these people hear about people being terminated

01:15:26.280 and their things it's like yeah well you were in a high risk setting right no one i've spoken to

01:15:31.060 about where i've explained the details of my situation goes yeah they were justified in doing

01:15:35.760 that like other colleagues of mine hr professionals executives you know different industries they're

01:15:40.740 like wait working from home and they're like wait wait were you going back into the office i'm like

01:15:45.740 no not even that right so there's no like i haven't met a single person that's like yeah you know what

01:15:50.880 like you had a choice you did this you could have just done that like yes some people like why

01:15:54.460 wouldn't you agree to testing i'm like but it's not required right it's the principle right again

01:15:58.700 because what if they right if you agree to that and it's not required for the job what's them

01:16:02.480 stopping from saying hey you know we want to do blood work you want to make sure you're healthy

01:16:05.940 right we want to you know you need to submit blood work once a month there's a condition of

01:16:09.960 point and make sure you're helping and that's so important over the past two years and why you know

01:16:15.500 i think it's important to speak up about this stuff because it's like this this is setting

01:16:18.740 a really creepy precedent on on so many different fronts and so once again good on you for for um

01:16:25.540 just for speaking up on it thank you for sharing your story uh we've been going for an hour and 15

01:16:30.440 and i want to kind of you know being a professional human resources person let's talk about the people

01:16:37.220 who might be watching who might still be in one of these corporate environments uh you know what

01:16:42.760 advice do you have for employees especially in a big corporate environment or in general

01:16:47.620 um you know maybe there's somebody for example who has has confirmed this attestation what should

01:16:54.200 they look out for what options do they have what do you think moving forward for people yes i think

01:17:00.200 just generally speaking advice for those who work in a large corporate setting um i i got to where

01:17:06.260 I was in my career working in large corporate. I don't regret the career path I've taken. I've

01:17:11.580 learned a lot, worked with a lot of great people. It certainly has given me the experience and the

01:17:17.040 knowledge that I hold today because of those companies that I've worked at, like IBM, Rogers,

01:17:21.320 and more recently CIBC. Although I would say, you know, anyone who works in a large corporate

01:17:26.340 environment knows that there is, it's a different type of culture than if you work in a small

01:17:31.020 company or family-run business whatever um and the advice is just you know be mindful of what you say

01:17:39.660 and who you say it to uh optics in in large corporate environment are very important um

01:17:45.820 appearances are very important uh they they certainly prefer the status quo most of the time

01:17:52.860 and i think anyone who's listening who's worked in a large corporate environment knows that they

01:17:56.220 are reluctant to change that they just kind of want you know don't rock the boat keep it the same

01:18:01.020 and and the reality is is if you're you're kind of the type of person to kind of go along with

01:18:05.080 things and just do your job head down whatever you can succeed and make good money and have a

01:18:10.500 great career in a large corporate environment but there there will be times where you will

01:18:15.020 have to compromise on either kind of your values kind of your opinions whatever and just kind of

01:18:21.220 agree right just to kind of you know not put a target on your back um right to me like i could

01:18:26.860 have kept my job if i just complied and agreed and said hey i gotta agree to testing even though

01:18:31.480 i felt it was an overreach and not required for the job i could have kept it right but i to me i

01:18:36.780 couldn't in good conscience do that um so i would say did you feel this way before this whole

01:18:42.700 scenario where in order to work in a corporate environment you do kind of have to bite your

01:18:47.100 tongue at times and kind of keep a low profile low profile but yeah uh yeah yes and no like i

01:18:52.720 would say for me in my role i started to feel that way like i i left ibm uh primarily because it was

01:18:58.400 like there wasn't a lot of growth in canada right you know ibm canada is like four percent or three

01:19:02.880 percent of ibm global so they're kind of an afterthought not much growth but i was also

01:19:07.120 kind of getting frustrated with like hey like i have ideas we can do things better why don't we

01:19:11.040 do this and things just kind of like don't happen right they don't change uh so you know i am i i

01:19:17.920 moved from there to rogers to the bank thinking that you know maybe it was the company right but

01:19:21.280 But to me, I started to realize it was that large corporate environment, particularly being in HR, I would say I'm not your typical HR person.

01:19:28.040 I think I have the right values around what I think we should be doing, what's right, what's wrong.

01:19:34.240 I have a good and more compass in that sense to be in HR, but certainly there's an aspect of kind of virtue signaling, kind of that woke kind of culture that's sort of started to kind of make its way into the large corporate environment, particularly within HR that I found myself like not agreeing.

01:19:51.280 to a lot of things we were maybe doing or having to kind of roll out to our employees but again i

01:19:54.880 was like you know what it pays well the rest of my job is interesting i like it i'm good at what i

01:19:58.960 do so you know i'll just deal with it but there were certainly things up to did the whole kind

01:20:05.360 of covid you know vaccine mandate that was making me uneasy and just certain things of kind of

01:20:11.120 examples of it um like i became aware of an instance of an employee at the bank who was

01:20:17.840 reprimanded and given a warning letter for a comment that they made on instagram and and to

01:20:24.880 me i thought well wait a second like were they making a comment to a colleague of theirs was it

01:20:28.800 related to the bank like what was it it was none of those things right it was they made a comment

01:20:33.520 on an instagram post about a public figure uh questioning kind of like you know just saying hey

01:20:38.560 you know do with sexual assault and they said hey it's you know this person should have basically the

01:20:43.520 the employee said this person you know the woman should have known uh who they were dealing with

01:20:47.840 right like let me know you might have mentioned like if i went on a date with oj simpson and he

01:20:52.880 like tried to hurt me people would be like dude like what were you thinking you know like but

01:20:56.640 someone read that thought it was victim shaming which sure you can interpret it that way uh sent

01:21:01.680 it to the bank uh they investigated it and they reprimanded the employee and to me i asked the

01:21:06.880 question was it done on company time no was it done on a company asset no is the individual on

01:21:14.040 their social media linked to the company in any way right are they speaking on behalf you know

01:21:17.500 people on twitter they say where they work and if you say where you work you got to be a bit more

01:21:21.040 mindful because there could be at sure you know you're speaking on behalf of the company was there

01:21:25.120 was there a photo where they're like wearing a CIBC shirt nothing like that there was no linkage

01:21:30.100 right so basically it was and and the person they were making the comment about was not related to

01:21:35.340 the bank the person who complained to my knowledge was not an employee right so there was no linkage

01:21:41.160 so basically it would be it's a freedom of speech thing right they said something in a public space

01:21:46.740 which is instagram and someone got offended and sent it to the bank and this employee got

01:21:51.740 reprimanded for it right it was okay this is wild this is it would be like it would be like if i was

01:21:57.960 driving into the office and i i let's say i flip someone off i give them the finger right that

01:22:05.020 person follows me and they're really upset like that was mean that was rude you shouldn't have

01:22:08.540 done that and then they just go knock on the door and they tell my employer to say austin flip me

01:22:12.040 off on the road in and like imagine that employer like reprimanding me for it right it's like does

01:22:17.200 that have anything to do with my job does it have anything to do with my performance any of that no

01:22:21.640 and to make matters worse the employee apologized to us saying i didn't mean to victim shame that's

01:22:26.540 not what i meant i was just thought i was stating the obvious that this person in this article is

01:22:30.500 not a they're not a jonas brother right like um they just you know and then they got reprimanded

01:22:37.600 for it and when you get a warning letter it impacts your bonus right so to me it's just like

01:22:42.480 when i i saw that kind of example or and heard that example happening i was like this is this

01:22:47.860 is kind of where it starts right and this is kind of the the extreme version of this kind of overly

01:22:54.480 sensitive kind of culture that a lot of these companies are kind of experiencing and that

01:22:59.080 people are seeing um right if if this kind of thing happened if they made that comment in work

01:23:04.840 meeting to a colleague sure right then there's context of it within work right it would be

01:23:10.280 you know like if you look at porn on a company laptop you can't do that but it'd be like you

01:23:14.780 know someone complaining that you looked at porn on your personal laptop and got you in trouble for

01:23:18.020 it it's like there's no linkage between the personal life and work for there to be a valid

01:23:22.180 complaint right so it doesn't make any sense so i guess you know the to answer your question um

01:23:27.000 about was I feeling kind of this way, you know, with not agreeing with the direction of a kind

01:23:34.260 of large corporate environment. I was starting to feel that way, but I certainly was still

01:23:37.380 a dedicated employee, wanted to keep working, was still learning a lot in my role, right,

01:23:42.660 which I thought was helping me round out as an HR professional. But certainly there was

01:23:47.960 more evidence of these types of things starting to happen.

01:23:50.800 wow so someone made an instagram comment and not associated with the brand not associated

01:23:59.100 with the company and then somehow this so this is pretty well cancel culture but except it's

01:24:05.380 enforced by not really much other than someone complaining to to the company to the corporate

01:24:11.380 entity yeah yeah it was there was no there was no linkage between the employee's personal life

01:24:18.220 that conduct and work as far as i was aware um and it's it was just i couldn't believe it the

01:24:24.620 the the employee could not believe it either they were like like hopefully this is a rare case

01:24:30.060 hopefully this isn't like a yeah i did not see like this is like a theme or happen regularly

01:24:35.020 but keep in mind i i worked in just a small subset of the bank supporting the people i did and

01:24:40.460 and wouldn't be privy to all the other stuff going on um and again like if if someone does

01:24:45.980 any kind of misconduct at work or does something any anything inappropriate i'm not insensitive to

01:24:50.380 that stuff in fact i i do think we look into it and we do have a right you know an obligation to

01:24:56.060 investigate and make sure you know it was handled properly but but for things that people do in

01:25:00.380 their personal life that have nothing to do with work right like even like unless it impacts your

01:25:05.100 ability to do your job like let's say you get a dui yes that's personal but it's criminal and and

01:25:10.140 you might need a car to drive into the office then it becomes our business sure but sharing

01:25:15.580 an opinion on pop culture yeah that's a little different maybe it's offensive maybe it's in bad

01:25:20.560 taste but it wasn't like you know an anti-semitic comment it wasn't something that was like you

01:25:24.700 know attacking someone or calls to violence or or anything that could be is ill it was just

01:25:30.320 it was a comment that someone got upset about which sure like i read the comment i was like

01:25:34.340 yeah it's in bad taste but like what does this have to do with their job what does this have

01:25:39.360 to do with us yeah with our job there's nothing to do with us so yeah i could see if it was like

01:25:43.820 a guy in a CIBC shirt posting a video of like hey here's my opinion on immigration and it's like

01:25:49.740 did you have to wear the CIBC shirt for that but uh there's no no linkage whatsoever so like things

01:25:56.100 like that I'm like that's a bit unsettling um and then obviously you know leading to the behavior

01:26:00.280 that I saw that I personally experienced with with asking questions valid questions right like

01:26:06.180 the logic that they followed that led to my dismissal was just it's broken in so many ways

01:26:11.640 but you know i shouldn't be surprised right based on on what i was starting to see all right so uh

01:26:17.620 we're almost at a uh an hour and a half here but i do want to ask you kind of one final question

01:26:22.000 just to wrap it up here uh well i guess a couple questions are you gonna be you know fighting this

01:26:29.340 what happened at cibc are you going to be taking some legal efforts that's question one and then

01:26:34.060 also uh you know how has your life changed since since this all happened sure so in terms of the

01:26:40.520 legal side like i won't get into too much detail there certainly i i feel i'll still take whatever

01:26:45.560 avenues i need to to right this wrong uh where things are at in that process i'm not going to

01:26:50.420 get into but certainly at a later date if if there's some sort of resolution or it becomes

01:26:55.360 more widely known you know we can talk about it and how that all goes but for now um you know

01:27:00.000 certainly i'm not just going to accept what happened uh and even talking with you here i'm

01:27:04.560 just sharing my thoughts the truth my side of the story uh and kind of what happened to me and more

01:27:09.680 you know to just bring more light to it uh certainly if there's anyone listening who's

01:27:13.500 gone through a similar circumstance and has had either success from a legal standpoint please let

01:27:17.620 me know uh i recognize that everyone's situation is different right i was not terminated for being

01:27:22.660 unvaccinated i was terminated for not agreeing to new employment terms which included testing

01:27:27.900 right so there's a distinction there um so and then the other question in terms of how my life

01:27:32.600 has changed uh basically a complete 180 in 12 months um so i worked through my 20s uh basically

01:27:41.400 thinking i would climb the corporate ladder um in my estimation i had the skill you know the the eq

01:27:48.760 um the the aptitude to be a senior employee at a corporate environment whether director

01:27:54.120 executive level that was kind of my target and career path i'm like yeah i'll work my way up

01:27:58.840 i was a senior hr consultant which is one pay grade below director level at the bank nice um so

01:28:05.480 that's kind of where i thought i was going um but since since this has all happened i i will no

01:28:11.560 longer work in a large corporate environment uh particularly if that company had any sort of

01:28:16.200 mandate or um or similar behavior that the bank exhibited like i just i can't in good conscience

01:28:22.520 unless they've really peddled it back and said hey this was wrong and admitted it um so for me

01:28:27.960 how it's changed i've had to leave toronto i had to move which was a you know stressful time and

01:28:33.880 leave the city that i knew and loved with all my friends there i went back to my parents house for

01:28:38.200 six months until i started to kind of figure out consulting and the work i was going to do going

01:28:42.760 forward and then moved to calgary so i'm out here one of my good childhood friends lives in calgary

01:28:47.960 he's been here for almost seven or eight years now he's been bugging me to come out so i moved

01:28:52.920 like because i was at my parents house i was going to have to move again so my option was back to

01:28:56.280 to toronto which is you know anyone listening who's in the toronto area knows cost of living

01:29:00.580 is expensive there knows how uh destructive the the passports were right from september 22nd till

01:29:07.420 march 13th or whatever the date was in toronto in ontario i couldn't play hockey i couldn't go

01:29:13.320 to the gym restaurant bar travel any of that stuff so for me moving to alberta at least it's a bit

01:29:18.940 more um understanding of how those implications can be on people's lives so i moved here

01:29:25.340 uh and now i've pivoted and i always thought maybe at some point i would gain enough kind

01:29:31.400 of corporate hr experience learning from them learning what works what doesn't work and then

01:29:36.120 eventually apply that into my own kind of hr consulting but that was something in my mind i

01:29:40.500 had like 30s 40s you know start a business then uh but since this happened i've kind of had to

01:29:46.540 pivot uh i incorporated a consulting company uh earlier in 2022 uh and i've just been working as

01:29:54.020 private hr consultant with a couple clients uh in toronto while i work from home so um anyone

01:29:59.700 listening if you're a technical person uh like you have you know your devops software developer

01:30:05.540 um you know solutions architect tech lead those type of roles if you're skilled

01:30:10.260 and anything i've said has resonated with you in terms of my way of thinking culture like please

01:30:14.180 be in touch with me i might have some opportunities for you uh but yeah that's kind of how my life

01:30:18.340 has changed i've been uprooted my life in toronto and did a 180 uh where i thought honestly i thought

01:30:23.460 i would be in corporate hr for the better part of my career um and now i've had to kind of

01:30:29.060 reevaluate and and change and and seeing where hr is going i don't think i fit into those cultures

01:30:35.620 very well anymore um so if there's anyone listening who's also in hr who's not like woke and not

01:30:42.100 you know has common sense and a good moral compass like please be in touch i i certainly

01:30:46.660 um how can they get in touch with you yeah uh so i'd say linkedin even though i'm not a big fan

01:30:52.340 of linkedin it's too much uh too many pats on the back for each other it's like i'm humbled to

01:30:57.060 announce that i'm isn't humble like all these kind of um all these these posts that are a bit to me

01:31:02.740 it's a bit disingenuous right people just you know post stuff so i don't use linkedin for that but i

01:31:06.740 certainly use it uh to connect with people with candidates for roles that i'm hiring for so

01:31:12.340 anyone who wants to connect with me you can find me on linkedin austin cisco or if you type in cisco

01:31:17.780 hr like cisco hr one word uh that's my company name currently cisco hr consulting it's to be

01:31:24.340 honest it's a placeholder right now i created this company very quickly my logo is like microsoft

01:31:29.380 paint uh but at some point when i figure out kind of what i want to narrow in with my consulting

01:31:34.740 business and kind of think it through i'll probably do a rebrand and a refresh and you know maybe hire

01:31:39.540 some stuff but for now it's just a placeholder but you can find me at cisco hr or cisco hr

01:31:44.980 consulting on linkedin um or just find me like austin cisco you'll see my profile you'll see

01:31:49.960 my picture i think i'm wearing a sweater even um so that's how they can get in touch um but yeah

01:31:55.800 that's that's kind of how my life has changed in the last 12 months wow uh there it is on screen

01:32:02.260 austin cisco hr or search cisco hr to get in touch with our with our friend austin here um thank you

01:32:10.260 for sharing all that thank you thank you for taking us through the nitty-gritty and kind of

01:32:13.840 giving us the play-by-play of, yeah, dealing with these mandates

01:32:19.620 and really standing up for, you know, the law, employment law,

01:32:25.060 and employees everywhere.

01:32:26.760 And I just thought of one last kind of question.

01:32:29.220 Sure.

01:32:29.780 How has it been, you know, getting terminated when you're working from home

01:32:35.500 for health and safety just seems so on its face ridiculous.

01:32:41.100 Yeah.

01:32:41.300 and i'm just kind of curious you know your friends and family because you know i've had

01:32:46.360 this has been like a very very divisive time despite you going through this you know what

01:32:50.840 have you still had to deal with in terms of people who are just like well why don't you

01:32:53.840 you should have just got the jab anyway or like why are you asking questions like did you have

01:32:57.240 to confront kind of like those sort of attitudes yeah a lot of it like you know um my my immediate

01:33:03.480 family was fairly supportive like my mom was kind of like questioning like do you really want to do

01:33:09.400 this like are you really going to walk away from your job is this the hill you're going to die on

01:33:14.040 yeah like stuff yes it is like like kind of my thought was like no like i can't you know you

01:33:18.920 give them inch give an inch they take a mile and and it's you know i know what is right and i know

01:33:24.840 what is wrong um you know i i grew up with good parents who kind of instilled those values and

01:33:29.480 then working in hr for 10 years particularly the type of roles that i've been in i was exposed to

01:33:34.440 so many uh employee issues legal issues around harassment discrimination changes to employment

01:33:40.680 contracts all of my jobs with the exception at CIBC like when i was at Rogers and IBM was dealing

01:33:45.960 with this stuff so i felt like i had a good kind of calibrated sense of what was right and wrong

01:33:50.120 and i was like what they're doing isn't right so i can't in good conscience agree uh but certainly

01:33:54.440 i had to deal with um you know people not truly understanding why i was so opinionated and holding

01:34:01.400 firm in it but when i started to explain people the full context of like i was working from home

01:34:07.000 this is how employment law works this is how banks and all companies typically would have to operate

01:34:11.240 for these types of changes right any change to conditions of your employment have to be a

01:34:15.000 requirement have to be justified for the role most people were like yeah i understand it doesn't

01:34:19.320 make sense and like no one like you know i think most people when i explained to them the context

01:34:23.800 in a longer setting they were like yeah this is absurd like how did this even happen right and i

01:34:29.800 again to this day i still i still scratch my head um it's unfortunate and i think that the

01:34:37.320 like if i had done something that i thought was wrong let's say i stole money

01:34:41.080 or or i harassed someone i did something egregious to warrant being terminated

01:34:45.720 i i would own up to it right i would admit hey messed up i did something wrong i deserve these

01:34:51.000 you know the repercussions for my actions but this it's just i was working from home

01:34:55.720 right like that's the that's the part that doesn't make any sense right and and not only that is no

01:35:01.280 one was going into the office right like we've said many times um and you kept your pants on

01:35:06.840 when you're on zoom calls all the time oh yeah like i you know i was standing up bringing my

01:35:11.080 camera to the bathroom and be like oops i'm on the zoom call like nothing like i never i never

01:35:16.240 was disciplined once in my career uh never even had a a chat of like hey you know you shouldn't

01:35:22.960 done this like no even warnings ever in my career um and even like i mentioned like i was doing a

01:35:28.800 clearly enough of a job to get more than my target bonus in december and a raise in january

01:35:33.760 which like clearly suggests that there was no my performance in my output and and even on the way

01:35:39.040 out my executives that i supported my non-hr like the business executives where i was their hr guy

01:35:44.320 they were all saying you know you were such a pleasure to work with um like even hang on here um

01:35:52.960 one sec um thanks for the super chat anonymous thank you greg and austin thank you for keeping

01:36:01.720 up poking at the dialogue you know like one of my executives said i'm sad it came to this point i

01:36:06.420 hope you and them find some resolution in the coming days which enables you to return i love

01:36:10.020 working with you if there's anything i can do to help let me know right like like and this is what's

01:36:14.560 one front of my business unit executives right like so there was no they needed the help they

01:36:19.480 they would have been fine to let me work from home right they're just like we don't care if

01:36:22.700 in the office just like we need to support why are we going to shoot ourselves in the foot when we

01:36:26.700 were short-staffed so the logic it just falls apart all over and that's i think what's the

01:36:30.700 most upsetting is that like i'm a reasonable open-minded guy i'll listen to i'll listen to

01:36:36.060 people's sides i i even understand their their logic to a point but then some of it starts to

01:36:42.220 fall apart um and it's just that's i think what was the most frustrating and most upsetting was

01:36:47.820 just that it was it didn't make sense and I just you know they weren't communicating and I just I

01:36:54.540 really did not think that was fair so you know but it's led us to where we are today and hopefully

01:36:59.420 you know people see this and and get in touch and reach out and maybe feel more empowered to

01:37:03.900 to stand up and speak their mind about their experiences and and just you know be mindful

01:37:09.980 if you're if you're in a corporate setting just be mindful of what you say in and outside of work

01:37:15.580 it's not that they're not a it's not that they're a bad place to work I think most of the places in

01:37:20.820 a corporate setting whether it's good or bad it depends very much on your immediate manager right

01:37:25.620 if you have a good manager it doesn't matter what bank you're at telecom what tech company you're

01:37:31.100 at if you have a good boss that's really what matters so anyway that's I don't know if you

01:37:36.940 have any other questions before we kind of wrap things up no that's everything that's everything

01:37:40.660 Thanks again, Austin.

01:37:42.120 You can look up Austin Cisco on LinkedIn if you have any questions or if you're seeking

01:37:48.360 advice or if you want to get, if you're an HR professional, maybe you want to team up,

01:37:51.800 anything like that.

01:37:53.080 So advice, guidance on next steps, like anything, right?

01:37:56.900 Like it's, you know, just expand the network of people who've maybe been through kind of

01:38:01.240 similar things like this.

01:38:02.340 And, or like I said, if you're a technical person and looking for a change and an employer

01:38:06.940 that's not going to you know play these sorts of games i have some connections so uh be in touch

01:38:12.060 awesome thanks again austin so much for your time uh and that's going to be it for the stream but

01:38:19.040 guys if you want to support more content like this there's information in the links below i started a

01:38:23.340 patreon recently i'm really hoping to keep content like this alive and do a lot more fun stuff and

01:38:29.220 eventually hire editors so i can get more stuff out to you but uh thanks again austin for your

01:38:34.060 time and thank you just one last thing for you like sure uh i've followed you for probably i

01:38:40.160 don't know a year and a bit now uh just seeing your little short clips that were good humor

01:38:43.900 throughout um you know it certainly appreciate you've done uh it's it's a good way to like

01:38:49.840 sometimes you just gotta like fight it with humor right like like some of the the skits you do it's

01:38:53.960 just you you point out how absurd the whole thing is and it's been a good laugh so i appreciate the

01:38:57.600 work that you've been doing man thank you thank you means a lot means a lot and uh likewise man

01:39:03.160 likewise because it takes a lot of bravery to hop on a call like this and and uh stand up to a big

01:39:08.920 big big corporation uh but i think it speaks a lot to your character because you you are

01:39:15.620 professional you are diligent you know what you're talking about and uh and again adds to the

01:39:22.120 absurdity that they let you go they let go like of a really really uh an asset to their to their

01:39:27.740 company obviously yeah it makes sense so if the bank's listening you can always call me and we

01:39:32.720 can we can reach a resolution hey CIBC you heard it lines open the lines open yeah right it's never

01:39:41.280 too late to do the right thing and to fix the wrongs in my opinion so um so we'll see where

01:39:46.020 things go I'll keep you and the listeners updated whenever things change or whenever it's officially

01:39:50.400 resolved but for now we'll see awesome awesome and with that we will talk to you guys soon thank

Greg Wycliffe - October 14, 2022

Bank fires work at home HR employee who questioned C0vid policies.

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