Canadian HR Reporter Weekly

3 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2018 August 29, 2018 another to give employers enough time to prepare for it, because… we need time to rejig our calculations within our payroll systems, particularly for those employers who work with service providers," she said. "To implement these new calculations overnight is not possible," said Chong. "If they're going to go ahead with this, I would appreciate if they would look at maybe adding this next year or two years down the road to give employers enough time to prepare." "Time is of the essence for us to prepare and implement and test the calculations to make sure that they're in working order, because the last thing we need is errors. Once the error is happening, we have to correct those and that's a whole different level of challenges that are imposed on payroll. Its never-ending." Statutory holidays At present, only five statutory holidays are recognized across all Canadian jurisdictions: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Canada Day, Labour Day and Christmas. Because of this, administering payroll nationally is a challenge, according to Chong. "It can be a challenging task for an employer if you have a national payroll across the country or you deal with union payroll, or if your payroll has shift work, you pay your employees overtime, vacation," she said. "All of these can be impacted by one new stat holiday. ere are a lot of challenges with respect to the calculation of stat holidays for us in payroll." Rather than creating a brand-new holiday on the annual calendar, consideration could be given to shifting around the current schedule, said Pohlmann. "When we talk about ways to mitigate costs or offset the costs, one way could be to move one out and add this one in, or rename one that recognizes this particular issue," she said. "ere are other ways to potentially look at this, and for governments to think about what the implications might be, in terms of their own economy and what it means for the business owners." If implemented, the holiday would be the latest cost for employers set to endure an increase to Canada Pension Plan contributions next year, alongside larger-than-usual minimum wage increases in some jurisdictions, said Pohlmann. "ere's all kinds of things happening right now that the timing is not great either, from an economic standpoint," she said. "It's not up to us to decide whether it's the right thing to do to recognize reconciliation. For us, it's just about what are the costs and (making) sure if we're going to add those costs, (to) think about ways to mitigate it." 'Right thing to do' But not all employers are against the move, according to Jeff Ward, founder and CEO of Animikii, an Indigenous technology company in Victoria. For the past two years, the company has given all employees June 21 off to show respect for Indigenous cultures in Canada. "On June 21, there's some amazing celebrations going on around the country which you can't partake in if you're stuck behind your desk at work," he said. "It's the right thing to do and provinces should make it a stat holiday and really follow the lead of Northwest Territories and Yukon. ere's already been a precedent set there. I feel that if the provinces don't make it a formal stat holiday, that wouldn't be in the best interest of the provinces." Ward's company helped organize a petition in support of the holiday, which was eventually presented in the House of Commons in 2016 by Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette of Winnipeg. If Canadian businesses are required to give employees time off for "colonial" holidays like Victoria Day and "Christian" observances like Christmas, then the country's original peoples deserve a day of remembrance as well, said Ward. "I would swap Victoria Day for Indigenous People Day if there was a total maximum limit on stat holidays that we could have in this country," he said. "ere's a cost aspect… (but) the fact that many Canadian companies only give off two weeks a year, standard — we have room for improvement there anyway. So what's an extra day?" Businesses need to focus on more than simply the financial bottom line, said Ward. "ere are benefits to the business when employees have time off," he said. "We're all human beings and we need time off to recharge. What better way to do that than celebrate the original peoples of this country?" It can be a challenging task for an employer if you have a national payroll or you deal with union payroll or shift work." Credit: Bing Wen (Shutterstock) Rather than creating a brand-new holiday, consideration could be given to shifting around the current schedule, according to Corinne Pohlmann, senior vice-president of national affairs at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

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