Canadian Payroll Reporter

4 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2016 Feds still working to fix Phoenix payroll problems › OTTAWA — It may take until the end of October for the federal government to clear up a backlog of pay problems associated with its new Phoenix payroll system, a government official says. About 80,000 federal civil servants have reported problems with their pay since the department began rolling out the new payroll system in February. To work through the pay issues, Marie Lemay, deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada, said the department has divided pay problems into three priority groups. The first priority is employees who have not been receiving any pay. This includes new hires and students, as well as employees returning to work from unpaid leaves of absence. In total, Lemay said the group includes about 1,200 employees, although she added that many of them have now started receiving pay. She said the department's aim is to address pay issues for employees in the first priority group within three working days of learning of a problem. The second group is made up of employees whose pay was affected by going on leave or by termination of employment. This includes workers experiencing pay problems related to maternity or parental leave payments, long-term disability payments, severance pay or requests for Records of Employment. Lemay reported that by late July, there were about 1,100 employees in this group. She said the department is working to address issues for employees in the second group within four to six weeks of being notified of a problem. The third group, which is the largest, consists of employees receiving regular pay, but missing supplementary payments, such as extra duty pay and pay related to promotions or salary increases. Lemay said there are about 79,000 federal workers in the group. She added that by the end of October, the department plans to address all cases in the third priority group that were backlogged with its pay centre in Miramichi, N.B., before June. Lemay said the department has hired more pay staff and opened temporary pay units in Gatineau, Montreal, Shawinigan and Winnipeg. It has also set up a national call centre in Toronto. She said the department is also offering help to employees facing financial hardship because of missing or inaccurate pay. "We have encouraged managers to take advantage of the existing processes through which they can issue emergency payments to employees," said Lemay. "The Treasury Board Secretariat is exploring options to reimburse employees for out-of- pocket expenses they have incurred as a result of inaccurate or missing pay," she added. "This could include penalties for missed payments and insufficient fund charges." In addition, she said the department is developing more tools and improving training April numbers from the previously reported $956. On a year-over-year basis, weekly earnings increased 0.9 per cent in May. The increase in weekly earnings during the 12 months to May reflected a number of factors, including wage growth, changes in the composition of employment by industry, occupation and level of job experience, as well as average hours worked per week. Non-farm payroll employees worked an average of 32.8 hours a week in May, down slightly from 32.9 hours reported for April. Employers concerned about employees' retirement savings: Survey › TORONTO — Canadian employers are increas- ingly concerned for employees' financial well- being and are planning to take action to help them retire in a timely manner, says a new survey. The survey of more than 122 Canadian employers, by Willis Towers Watson, found 58 per cent of employers that provide a defined contribution (DC) plan as their only type of pension view employees' retirement benefit adequacy as a top risk for their plans. To help address the risk, 81 per cent of respondents expect to make employee engagement and communication a priority over the next two years. "Retirement benefit adequacy and the financial well-being of their workers are a growing concern among employers," says Jeff Kissack, a senior retirement consultant at Willis Towers Watson. "This is particularly true among employers that offer only a DC plan. In the private sector, the shift to DC plans is prompting employers to devote more resources to promoting retirement readiness," Kissack says. The funds required to retire at age 66 at the beginning of 2014 would now be sufficient only if the worker retired at 69, according to Willis Towers Watson's DC Retirement Index. "Given the current market volatility, securing a comfortable retirement is going to take some Canadian workers more time to achieve," says Karen Burnett, a senior retirement consultant at Willis Towers Watson. "As such, employers run the risk of having an increasing number of retirement-eligible employees who are working out of necessity rather than by choice." Burnett says a recent agreement to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) will help the next generation to save for retirement, and employers are starting to consider whether and how to integrate the additional CPP benefits and costs through changes to total rewards programs. "Any changes employers implement should be consistent with efforts to mitigate the risks inherent in their pension and savings plans, while assisting employees to plan and save for their retirement," Burnett says. News in Brief A look at news, facts and figures shaping the world of payroll professionals for employees and managers who work with the Phoenix payroll system. "While we offered training to employees and met with representatives of all departments every week before the rollout, it is clear that we underestimated the amount of time needed for users to be trained and to feel comfortable with the new system, which has added additional stress to the employees at the pay centre," said Lemay. Lemay also told the committee that the department is making enhancements to the Phoenix software to further automate processes and speed up pay transactions and timelines. In addition to the pay problems, Lemay said there have been privacy breaches related to Phoenix. One situation happened between March and July 2015, when employee names, identification numbers and pay amounts were inadvertently sent to IBM during testing of the new payroll system. B.C. tax commission to issue report in October › VICTORIA — A British Columbia commission studying tax competiveness in the province will present its final report to the government by the end of October, says Finance Minister Michael de Jong. The B.C. government announced it would form a commission to study ways to modernize the province's retail sales tax (PST) so it keeps pace with changes to the provincial economy. The government says the review is necessary because many of the province's taxes were designed in the early 20th century. "Since then, B.C.'s economy has undergone significant changes with services now making up three-quarters of the province's economic activity. Advances in technology have transformed the way business is conducted and services are offered, extending B.C.'s reach into markets around the globe," says the government. The commission's work will include reviewing factors expected to impact the province's economy in the future, identifying and analyzing how the PST and other business-tax issues affect competitiveness and economic growth, and recommending changes to the PST and other business taxes to improve competitiveness and economic growth. De Jong says the commission will not consider replacing the PST with a harmonized sales tax. Little change in average weekly earnings in May: StatsCan › OTTAWA — Average weekly earnings of non- farm payroll employees were $956 in May, little changed from $953.30 in April, Statistics Canada reports. Statistics Canada revised the

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