Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of Considered Response, including related webpages, downloadable resources, and services (collectively, the "Service").

Considered Response is provided by Novel Workplace Solutions Inc., operating as Novel HR ("Novel HR," "we," "us," or "our").

By creating an account, purchasing a subscription, or using the Service, you agree to these Terms.

If you are using the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have authority to accept these Terms on that organization's behalf. In that case, "you" includes both you and the organization you represent.

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service.

1. About Considered Response

Considered Response provides practical workplace guidance for managers and HR professionals when workplace concerns are raised.

The Service includes resources, prompts, frameworks, checklists, scripts, and other guidance intended to help users:

• prepare for workplace concern conversations;
• respond thoughtfully when concerns are raised;
• document appropriate first-response information;
• recognize when further assessment or specialist support may be appropriate; and
• consider possible categories of next steps.

Considered Response is a guidance tool. It is not a case-management, complaint-management, investigation, disciplinary, performance-management, or HRIS system.

2. Important limits of the Service

Considered Response provides general educational and workplace guidance.

It does not provide legal advice and is not a substitute for:

• advice from legal counsel;
• individualized HR or employee-relations advice;
• an investigation or formal fact-finding process;
• health and safety advice;
• accommodation or disability-management advice;
• medical or mental-health advice; or
• advice from another qualified professional where appropriate.

The Service does not determine:

• whether misconduct occurred;
• whether an allegation is substantiated;
• whether conduct meets a legal or policy definition of harassment, bullying, discrimination, violence, or other prohibited conduct;
• the credibility of any person;
• whether discipline should be imposed; or
• what legal rights or obligations apply in a specific situation.

Workplace requirements vary by jurisdiction, organization, collective agreement, policy, and circumstance. You are responsible for reviewing the policies, agreements, legislation, and other requirements that apply to your workplace and for seeking appropriate professional advice where needed.

3. Your responsibility for workplace decisions

You remain responsible for all decisions and actions you take in connection with a workplace concern. Considered Response may identify questions to consider, possible options, or circumstances where further assessment may be appropriate. This does not mean that a particular option is required or appropriate in your circumstances.

You should apply your own professional judgment and consider: organizational policies and procedures; applicable legislation and regulatory requirements; collective agreements; employment agreements; representation rights; workplace safety obligations; and advice from qualified internal or external resources where appropriate.

First-response guidance is not a substitute for a process required by policy, collective agreement, or applicable law.

4. Emergency and safety situations

Considered Response is not an emergency service. If a situation involves an immediate threat to safety, violence, a credible threat of violence, or another urgent risk of harm, follow your organization's applicable emergency and safety procedures and contact emergency services or other appropriate authorities where required. Do not rely on the Service to manage an emergency.

5. Eligibility and business use

You must be legally capable of entering into a binding agreement to use the Service. Considered Response is intended primarily for workplace and professional use by managers, HR professionals, organizational leaders, consultants, and other people responsible for responding to workplace concerns. If you use the Service on behalf of an organization, you are responsible for ensuring that your use is authorized by that organization.

6. Accounts and account security

You may need an account to access some or all of the Service. You agree to: provide accurate account information; keep your login credentials confidential; not share your account with unauthorized users; take reasonable steps to protect access to your account; and notify us promptly if you believe your account has been accessed without authorization.

You are responsible for activity conducted through your account unless the activity resulted from a security failure for which Novel HR is legally responsible. We may require you to reset credentials or take other reasonable security measures where we believe an account may be compromised.

7. Do not enter identifiable workplace case information

Considered Response is intentionally designed to minimize the collection of information about employees or workplace cases. You must not use the Service to store or submit:

• employee names or identifying information;
• detailed workplace complaint narratives;
• investigation reports or evidence;
• personnel files;
• disciplinary or performance records;
• medical or diagnostic information;
• accommodation documentation;
• Social Insurance Numbers;
• banking or financial information;
• government identification numbers;
• passwords or security credentials; or
• other confidential employee records.

Where the Service allows you to name or rename a concern, use a generic description such as "Manager Concern," "Team Issue," or "Communication Concern." Do not include employee names or other identifying information in that field.

8. Saved workspace information

Considered Response may allow you to save limited workspace information, including progress, selections, preferences, or a generic concern label. If saved workspace information associated with a concern has not been accessed or modified for 30 days, you will be notified and prompted to extend, close, or delete the concern. Saved workspace information will not be automatically deleted solely because the 30-day period has passed.

9. Licence to use Considered Response

Subject to your compliance with these Terms and payment of any applicable fees, Novel HR grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable right to access and use Considered Response during your subscription or authorized access period. The Service is licensed, not sold.

You may use downloadable checklists, templates, guides, and other resources made available through Considered Response for your own professional or internal organizational use. Unless we expressly permit otherwise, you may not distribute those resources outside your organization, publish them, resell them, or make them available as part of another commercial product or service.

10. Acceptable use

You agree to use Considered Response only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You must not: use the Service in violation of applicable law; enter information that these Terms specifically prohibit; share login credentials with unauthorized users; sell, sublicense, rent, or commercially redistribute access to the Service; scrape or systematically extract Service content; reverse engineer or attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service; or use the Service or its proprietary materials to create a substantially competing product without our written permission.

11. Intellectual property

Considered Response, including its software, design, structure, text, frameworks, checklists, templates, scripts, graphics, branding, and other content provided by Novel HR, is owned by or licensed to Novel Workplace Solutions Inc. and is protected by applicable intellectual property laws. Except for the limited rights expressly granted in these Terms, no ownership rights are transferred to you.

12. Information you provide to us

You retain ownership of information you provide through your account. To the extent necessary to operate the Service, you grant Novel HR a limited right to host, process, store, display, and otherwise handle that information solely for purposes of providing the Service, maintaining your account, and meeting applicable legal and security obligations. Our handling of personal information is governed by the Considered Response Privacy Policy.

13. Feedback

If you voluntarily provide suggestions, comments, ideas, or feedback about Considered Response, you agree that Novel HR may use that feedback to improve or develop its products and services without an obligation to compensate you.

14. Subscriptions and fees

Some features of Considered Response require a paid subscription. The price, billing frequency, subscription period, and included features will be displayed when you purchase the Service. Unless otherwise stated at checkout, fees are stated in Canadian dollars; applicable taxes are additional; and fees are charged according to the billing cycle you select.

Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries and handles returns.

Subscribers who purchased at a designated founding rate will retain that rate for the life of their continuous subscription, provided the subscription remains active and is not cancelled and restarted.

15. Automatic renewal and cancellation

If you purchase a subscription that renews automatically, the renewal terms will be disclosed when you subscribe. You may cancel future renewal through the cancellation method provided in the Service or by contacting us at support@novelHR.ca. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid billing period. Cancellation does not retroactively cancel charges already properly incurred.

16. Refunds

If you are not satisfied with Considered Response for any reason, you may request a full refund within 30 days of your initial purchase by contacting us at support@novelHR.ca. This guarantee applies to your first payment only and does not apply to subsequent renewal charges.

Except for the 30-day money-back guarantee on initial purchases, and except where required by applicable law or expressly stated in a specific offer, fees already paid are non-refundable and we do not provide prorated refunds for unused portions of a subscription period.

17. Trials and promotional access

If we offer a free trial, pilot, beta version, promotional period, or other no-cost access, additional terms may apply. We may modify or discontinue free or promotional access at any time, subject to any commitments expressly made when the access was offered.

18. Service availability and changes

We aim to make Considered Response reliably available, but we do not guarantee that the Service will always be uninterrupted or error-free. We may add, modify, replace, or discontinue features as the Service develops. Where a material change substantially reduces the core functionality of a paid subscription, we will take reasonable steps to provide notice where practical.

19. Updates to guidance and content

Workplace practices, legislation, regulations, and professional standards change over time. Novel HR may update Considered Response resources and guidance from time to time. We do not guarantee that every resource reflects the most recent law, policy, or practice in every jurisdiction. You remain responsible for checking the requirements that apply to your specific workplace.

20. No professional-client relationship

Use of Considered Response does not create a solicitor-client relationship, an HR consultant-client relationship, a fiduciary relationship, or another professional advisory relationship between you and Novel HR or Sarah Albo. If you engage Novel HR separately for consulting, coaching, mediation, or another professional service, that engagement will be governed by a separate agreement.

21. Third-party services and links

Considered Response may rely on or link to third-party services, websites, payment processors, or other platforms. Third-party services operate under their own terms and privacy practices. Novel HR is not responsible for the availability, security, accuracy, or practices of independent third-party services except to the extent required by applicable law.

22. Privacy

Our collection, use, disclosure, retention, and protection of personal information is described in the Considered Response Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.

23. Suspension or termination by Novel HR

We may suspend or terminate access to the Service where reasonably necessary because fees are overdue, you materially breach these Terms, your use creates a security or legal risk, or we are required to do so by law. Where reasonable in the circumstances, we will provide notice and an opportunity to address a remediable breach before terminating paid access.

24. Termination by you

You may stop using Considered Response at any time. You may close your account or cancel a paid subscription using the options available in the Service or by contacting support@novelHR.ca.

25. Disclaimer of warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Considered Response is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. Novel HR does not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free, that every resource will apply to every workplace or jurisdiction, or that use of the Service will prevent workplace conflict, complaints, claims, or other outcomes.

26. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Novel HR and its directors, officers, employees, and contractors will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive, or consequential losses arising from or relating to the Service. Novel HR's total aggregate liability will not exceed the total fees you paid during the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim. If you have not paid any fees, liability will not exceed CAD $100.

27. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify and hold Novel HR harmless from third-party claims arising directly from your unlawful use of the Service, your material breach of these Terms, or your deliberate submission of prohibited information contrary to these Terms.

28. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable in Ontario. Subject to any rights that cannot lawfully be limited, the courts located in Ontario will have jurisdiction over disputes arising from these Terms or the Service.

29. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as Considered Response changes or as legal or operational requirements evolve. The effective date at the top identifies the current version. Continued use of the Service after updated Terms take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms where permitted by law.

30. General terms

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision does not waive our right to enforce it later. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the agreement governing your use of Considered Response.

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