Companies across Canada struggling with work-from-home policies.

Two staff at Global News test positive

TORONTO • Two employees of Global News have tested positive for COVID-19 at the company’s head office in Toronto, according to a statement from the media company.

Multiple sources who work at the building told National Post that some staff were informed by the company that one of the confirmed cases was related to travel while the second appeared to contract the virus from the first.

According to an internal email sent by management to employees Friday evening, the employee entered voluntary self-quarantine the preceding Monday, March 9, “upon showing symptoms” of the virus.

Five days after the employee began self-isolation, Global brought in a “specialized sanitation crew” to conduct a cleaning of its main 81 Barber Greene facility, but employees were back to work as usual this Monday.

Global News did not respond to specific questions about the trajectory of events that led up to two of their employees contracting COVID-19, such as why the first employee who contracted the virus was allowed to work from the office upon returning from travel.

In a statement, spokesperson Rishma Govani said they were “actively monitoring this rapidly evolving situation” and “continue to follow the advice and guidelines provided by Public Health officials.”

The positive tests come as firms grapple with how to respond to the virus and in some cases struggle to implement work-from-home, leaving many workers afraid and uncomfortable.

“There are so many things at play right now when we’re dealing with a crisis of this scale,” said Kareen Emery, a human resources expert at job search firm Monster.

“There is a fear of change. There are people in upper management that will be very reluctant to make changes. Then you have companies that do not have the infrastructure to implement workfrom-home policies immediately,” said Emery.

At MCAP Financial Corp., an employee who declined to be named told Financial Post she has been told to come into the office every day, but to keep a distance of three feet from other staff.

On Monday afternoon, according to an internal email, MCAP told employees that they had only started looking into their “VPN and firewall licence count last week” — the tools required to securely log in from home — and that there were not enough for all 800 nationwide employees. “That’s why they continue to make all of us come in,” the employee said.

MCAP did not respond to a request for clarification.

Emery believes that at this juncture of the COVID-19 crisis, it is not so much that employers don’t want to implement work-from-home but rather that they simply do not have the ability to.

“Three months ago, there were HR departments having conversations about this and there was a cultural reluctance to want to implement this quickly. Today, it’s just technology. They are saying they are not ready because they don’t have the tools and it was not planned in advance,” she said.

Federal agencies too, appear to be struggling, in some cases, sending emails to employees that do not seem to match the tone of a public health crisis.

An internal email obtained by the Post sent by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (formerly the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency) to employees decreed that the agency would be taking “enhanced reporting on attendance, beginning Mon., March 16,” to brace for the “potential impact of COVID-19 on our workforce.”

The email also stated employees would not be able to work with their children at home. “In this case, employees should use family and other related leave. Once family leave is exhausted, leave should be continued to be recorded with your supervisor,” the email said.

To date, the IAAC has not implemented any workfrom-home measures.

“I thought it was horrendously inconsiderate,” said an IAAC employee who declined to be named. “We all have laptops and the ability to work from home, but the network cannot handle all staff working remotely at once. Instead of prioritizing essential staff and implementing rotational shifts, their solution is to ignore recommendations to have people stay at home,” the employee said.

The IAAC did not respond to a request for comment.