Canadian Payroll Reporter

November 2017

Focuses on issues of importance to payroll professionals across Canada. It contains news, case studies, profiles and tracks payroll-related legislation to help employers comply with all the rules and regulations governing their organizations.

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5 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2017 Saturday work may trigger overtime QUESTION: To do an inventory check and office reorganization, we are asking a number of employees to work on the next two Saturdays. These employees normally work Monday to Friday. Do we have to pay them at an overtime rate for the Saturday hours? ANSWER: Not necessarily. Depending on the jurisdiction in which the employees work, overtime pay entitlement depends on whether the employee works more than a specified number of hours per day or week. For instance, in the jurisdictions listed in Chart I, employers must pay overtime on hours worked in excess of the stated daily or weekly maximum hours, whichever is greater. In the remaining jurisdictions listed in Chart II, employers are required to pay overtime on hours worked on top of stated maximums. If employees do not exceed the daily/ weekly overtime thresholds by working on a Saturday, the employer is not required to pay them at an overtime rate for the hours worked that day. If the Saturday hours are in excess of the daily/weekly overtime thresholds, the em- ployer must pay overtime for the excess hours. Employers should also check their collec- tive agreements and employment contracts to determine if overtime pay is required. CPR | November 2017 ASK AN EXPERT Annie Chong MANAGER OF CARSWELL'S PAYROLL CONSULTING GROUP annie.chong@thomsonsreuters.com | (416) 298-5085 ANSWER: There are a few important dif- ferences to note before completing an ROE for a commission employee, including: • When to issue an ROE: Employers are required to issue ROEs when an em- ployee has an interruption of earnings. An interruption of earnings is different for commission employees than it is for those who are not paid by commission. For non-commission employees, an in- terruption of earnings occurs when an employee has seven consecutive calendar days with no work and no insurable earn- ings from their employer. It also occurs when the employee's salary drops below 60 per cent of his or her regular weekly earnings due to illness, injury, quarantine, pregnancy, the need to care for a new- born or an adopted child, the need to pro- vide care or support to a family member who is gravely ill with a significant risk of death, or the need for a parent to care for a critically ill child under 18 years old. For employees who are mainly paid by commission, an interruption of earnings only occurs when the employee's employ- ment contract ends or the employee stops working because of illness, injury, quar- antine, pregnancy, the need to care for a newborn or an adopted child, the need to provide care or support to a family mem- ber who is gravely ill with a significant risk of death or the need for a parent to care for a critically ill child. • Block 6: Enter "weekly pay period" as the pay period type regardless of the pay pe- riod the employer uses to pay employees. • Block 11: For the last day paid, enter the employment end date. If the ROE is for a leave referred to above, enter the last day of insurable employment instead. • Block 12: For the final pay period ending date, enter the date of the Saturday in the week in which the date entered in block 11 occurs. • Block 15A: Report the employee's total insurable hours. This would be the actual hours that the employee worked and for which he or she was paid. If you do not know the actual number of hours, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) allows employers and employees to agree on a number of hours that the employee would normally need to work to earn the amount paid. If the two sides cannot agree, determine the number of insurable hours by dividing the employee's insurable earnings by the minimum wage rate that applied on Jan. 1 of the year the earnings were payable in the jurisdiction in which the employee works. The result cannot exceed seven hours per day or 35 hours per week. • Block 15B: To determine the employee's total insurable earnings, you have to cal- culate the average weekly earnings paid to the employee. To do this, ESDC advises employers to total all of the insurable earnings they paid to the employee in the last 52 weeks (or the actual number of weeks if less than 52) and then subtract any amounts paid to the employee, other than regular pay, because of the interrup- tion of earnings. Next, divide the result by 52 (or the actual number of weeks the employee worked if less than 52) to ob- tain the average weekly earnings. • Block 15C: If completing an ROE elec- tronically, enter the employee's earnings by pay period. ESDC advises that employ- ers enter the amount of average weekly earnings from block 15B in all of the ap- plicable pay period fields except for the final pay period (P.P. 1). In P.P. 1, enter the total of the employee's average weekly earnings plus any amounts the employer paid the employee because of the inter- ruption of earnings. Employers using paper ROEs do not need to complete this block for commission employees. Complete the other blocks on the form as you normally would. Completing an ROE for commission employees QUESTION: I need to prepare a Record of Employment (ROE) for one of our employees paid mainly by commission. Do I complete it in the same way that I would for a non-commission employee? Jurisdiction Daily Hours Weekly Hours Canada Labour Code 8 40 Alberta 8 44 British Columbia 8 40 Manitoba 8 40 Northwest Territories 8 40 Nunavut 8 40 Saskatchewan 8/10 40 Yukon 8 40 Jurisdiction Daily Hours New Brunswick 44 Newfoundland and Labrador 40 Nova Scotia 48 Ontario 44 Prince Edward Island 48 Quebec 40 Chart I Chart II Credit: Nuk2013/Shutterstock

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