Employment of Relatives & Related Persons Policy
PURPOSE
The purpose of this policy is to provide guidance to employees of Kotn in balancing their professional and personal interests in the execution of their duties. This is to avoid creating or continuing an employment situation where there is the potential for favouritism and/or conflict of interest.
SCOPE
This policy applies to all Kotn Inc. employees including Kotn Consumer Canada, America, UK, Egypt and any other Kotn Inc. divisions.
This policy also applies to employment for all categories of employee: full-time, part-time, casual or temporary, volunteers, contractors, interns and co-op placements.
DEFINITIONS
Related Person:
Any individual with whom an employee or Kotn team member has a prior personal relationship e.g. friend, partner.
Relative:
A spouse, any person to whom the person is married or with whom the person is living in a conjugal relationship outside marriage; parent, including step-parent and legal guardian; child, including step-child; sibling and children of siblings; father/mother-in-law, brother/sister-in-law, son/daughter-in-law; any family member who lives with the employee on a permanent basis.
POLICY ELEMENTS
Kotn supports hiring on the basis of merit, and does not discourage, nor prohibit referrals from employees or the employment of more than one member of a family. However, due to the potential for conflicts of interest, the appointment of a relative or related person of a current employee to the same team is discouraged.
Kotn will not knowingly employ relatives or related persons in a direct supervisory relationship in which one has direct influence over another’s employment through decisions, recommendations or judgements related to such matters as appointment, assessment of performance, salary or other financial compensation, career growth and discipline.
Due to the potential for perceived or actual conflicts of interest, the following restrictions apply:
No employee shall participate in or influence the outcome of the appointment, hiring, promotion, supervision, discipline or evaluation of a relative or related person.
No person shall be hired, transferred or promoted to a position under any supervisory responsibility of a relative or related person.
As the intent of this policy is to protect both Kotn and the individual employee, each employee has a responsibility to inform the People Operations Lead, and his/her supervisor, of any actual or perceived conflict of interest.
Employees who fail to disclose a conflict of interest may be subject to appropriate disciplinary action.
