What Happens to Vacation When an Employee is on a Leave?

Employers often have questions about what to do with vacation when an employee is on a leave. Do they still earn vacation time? Do they still get vacation pay even if they aren’t getting paid? Vacation is one of the trickiest employment standards, but we will shed some light into its dark corners in this post! 

The Right to Vacation

Under the Ontario Employment Standards Act (the ESA), employees are entitled to vacation both during periods of active and inactive employment. Employees are entitled to a minimum of two weeks of vacation per year if they have been employed for less than five years and three weeks per year after five years of employment. Vacation can be paid time off or additional pay. Employees who work part-time generally earn vacation pay on each paycheque, as opposed to paid time off. 

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Unauthorized Absences – When your employees are crazy sports fans!

With the huge response to the Raptors parade this week we thought it a good time to revisit the issue of unauthorized employee absences. Many employers allowed their employees the day off to go celebrate, but there were also reports showing some employees, who did not get the day off, wearing fake noses and disguises to the parade so that they would not be identified by employers should they happen to get on TV. We discussed this topic way back in 2015 when the Blue Jays and Blue-Flu were causing a bit of a dip in employee productivity. Be it baseball, the World Cup (go Canada’s Women’s Soccer team! #CANWNT) or Raptors fever, employers need to be prepared to manage their sport fan employees!

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Public Holiday Pay Change

wood frame chair with orange striped fabric on a sandy beachThe first reversal of a Bill 148 change is on the horizon. On May 7, 2018, the Ontario government announced it will be reviewing the Bill 148 change to how public holiday pay is calculated. The new way of calculating public holiday pay has reportedly generated the most complaints of any of the Bill 148 changes to the Employment Standards Act, 2000.

The new O. Reg. 375/18 comes into force on July 1, 2018. It reverts the public holiday pay formula to the pre-Bill 148 version. This reversion is temporary and O. Reg. 375/18 will be revoked on December 31, 2019. This will allow the Ministry of Labour time to complete their review of public holiday pay and likely means that we can expect further changes.

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