Recently it was announced that all employees who fall under the Employment Standards Act here in BC will be eligible to receive five employer-paid sick days following the completion of their probationary period (90 days of employment). This comes into effect January 1, 2022.
If you're wondering how this will affect you and your business, Kelowna Chamber member Shawnee Love from Love HR was kind enough to share additional helpful information with us and our membership below.
From Shawnee:
Paid sick days are based on an average day’s wages of the last month of work. Here are a few examples, so you can see how it will unfold:
Full time example: Someone working 8 hours per day and five days per week will get 5 paid days of 8 hours each, even if the person works a bit of overtime from time to time. They will also get an additional 3 days of sick time without pay. (You can always offer more paid time off. This is just the minimum).
Part time example: Someone working 6 hours a day four days per week, will get five sick days of 6 hours each.
Casual example: If you have someone who works casually and hasn’t worked in a month, no sick pay will be required if they miss a day in their first few weeks back at work. However, if they work casually anywhere from 2-8 hours each time, you will need to track time each day and then take an average of the hours by days worked to calculate an average day’s pay.
When calculating an average day’s pay, include wages/ salary, commission, stat holiday pay and paid vacation. Overtime is excluded however, so if someone works a lot of OT and then takes a sick day, you would pay for a normal workday without OT.
Please reach out to the Chamber office if you have additional questions that we can address regarding this new policy. Thank you again to Shawnee Love for sharing her insight.
