After repeat till losses had been reported, Farro Fresh recently decided to take action and is now deducting those losses from wages, in order to cut down on mistakes and deter theft.
According to James Draper, director of Farro Fresh, a number of checkout operators were down $2-$5 everyday, which added up to a relevant sum over the past months, given that each of Farro’s four stores daily employs eight checkout operators.
This could be due to a number of things including incorrect change given. The company has previously, however, had a couple of employees who actively stole around $5,000 using false returns.
Responding to unions’ concerns, Draper guaranteed that no deduction from wages was made without the staff member’s specific consent, as required by the new Employment Standards Act. In addition, Draper said that individual meetings were only called when the balance at the end of the month was greater than an allowable amount.
With the employment law reform coming into effect as of April 1st, new compliance obligations are to be be imposed on employers. The bill includes measures to prevent unfair employment practices, such as so-called ‘zero-hour contracts’; employer and employee are now required to state the hours of work in the employment agreement, unless there are no agreed hours. In that case, however, the employer must provide an indication of the arrangements relating to the employee’s working times.
On their part, employees will be allowed to decline extra work, unless they agreed to an availability provision in exchange for reasonable compensation.
