Borden Ladner Gervais LLP is taking its employees’ mental health seriously. Four years ago, it implemented a strategy to focus on building awareness, reducing stigma and encouraging self-care and wellness. This started with one-on-one mental-health first aid training for all employees, says Laleh Moshiri, the Toronto-based law firm’s national director of diversity and inclusion. “Raising […]
After the Arthritis Society’s extensive advocacy for medical cannabis research, it seemed only natural for the organization to cover the drug under its employee benefits plan. In 2017, as it prepared to introduce the coverage, it brought together an expert panel, including doctors with extensive experience prescribing medical cannabis and expert pharmacists and advisors from […]
The City of Toronto’s director of pensions, payroll and employee benefits discusses pension changes, data technology and being a soccer dad. Q. What top challenges do you face in your role? A. We’re going through a large transformation in the division and that impacts a lot of areas, so basically looking at the programs, the […]
Roughly 3,200 Canadian National Railway Co. workers are on strike with outstanding issues including time-off provisions and lifetime caps on certain benefits. The strike, which began at midnight on Nov. 19, has seen conductors, train personnel and yard workers represented by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference pushing for further bargaining progress on these issues and others, including safety and fatigue. […]
The Co-operators Group Ltd. is partnering with WorldCare Health Inc. on a mental-health, medical second-opinion product for the insurer’s group benefits clients. The product combines an existing critical-illness, medical second-opinion review with access to hundreds of sub-specialized psychiatrists and 60 specialty clinical and research programs that address a wide range of psychiatric disorders. In using the […]
Western Forest Products Inc. says negotiations with the United Steelworkers union representing workers in a long-running coastal B.C. strike ended without resolution on the weekend. The company says no active negotiations are occurring and no future mediation dates have been scheduled after 14 hours of bargaining occurred on Saturday and Sunday supervised by two independent […]
The Toronto Transit Commission has settled a 2016 lawsuit against its insurer for the alleged failure to detect a benefits fraud scheme involving orthotics store Healthy Fit Inc. To date, 10 people — nine former TTC employees and Healthy Fit owner Adam Smith — have been convicted in relation to the scheme. More than 250 TTC employees resigned or […]
SSQ Life Insurance Co. Inc. is partnering with Haleo and MindBeacon Software Inc. to offer digital cognitive behavioural therapy to group insurance plan members. Both companies offer online CBT, with Haleo’s tool focusing on sleep disorders and MindBeacon’s option directed at mild to moderate anxiety and depression symptoms. The partnerships are part of a broader digital health strategy, according to the insurer, which is aiming to […]
Medication-related issues are negatively affecting employees’ health, causing them to take extended leaves from their jobs and leading to high benefits and disability costs for employers, according to a new white paper by HumanisRx. These issues include incompatible or duplicate drugs, higher than recommended doses, suboptimal therapy and failure to take medications as prescribed. “Our research finds […]
The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association has published a guide to help health-care providers and patients understand private health insurance. The guide, released during financial literacy month, was produced with the Extended Healthcare Professionals Coalition, a group that represents medical professionals, including psychologists, physiotherapists, audiologists, occupational therapists, chiropractors and pharmacists, among others. It’s geared toward […]