HR Q&A: Your Frequently Asked HR Questions Answered

Where do you go for answers to your human resources related questions? It’s important to rely on an HR expert who is well-versed and experienced with the needs and challenges of your type of business. Here is a summary of the most common questions we received over the past quarter.

Q: I’m hiring my first employee. Where do I need to register my business to ensure I’m in compliance with all the regulatory bodies?

A: For BC business owners, when hiring your first employee, you need to register your business as an employer with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) so that you can make income tax, CPP and EI deductions and remit them to the CRA. Failure to do so can result in significant penalties.

As well, you need to register for coverage with WorkSafe BC to ensure your company and your employees are insured in case of injuries at work. Once you employ staff, you are required to remit premiums based on the appropriate rate for your business classification.

While not technically registering, you also need to ensure you are in compliance with the Employment Standards Act of BC, which provides the minimum standards for employment terms and conditions, including wage rates, overtime rates, vacation time and pay, notice of termination, etc.

It’s critical that you confirm the terms and conditions of employment between your company and your employee in a written offer of employment.

Q: I’d like to offer a benefits plan to my employees, but I find they’re quite expensive and beyond my budget. What are my options?

A: Benefits plans, covering items like Extended Health, Dental, and Vision Care can be quite expensive for small and medium businesses. Consider checking with your local chamber of commerce or industry association to see if any group plans are available.

Also, you may want to consider adopting a Private Health Services Plan (PHSP). These are set up through a Health and Welfare Trust. You set a dollar limit for each employee, and they can use this towards to CRA-approved medical and dental treatments. This provides greater flexibility for both the business and the employee alike. Different people value different services depending on their life situation: someone may want more massage therapy, while another wants to put the money towards orthodontics.

A partial list of approved medical expenses include: paramedical services, psychologists, speech therapy, home care nursing, prosthetic appliances, durable medical equipment, prescription drugs, dental care, vision care, laser eye surgery, fertility treatments, and more. The full list can be found at the CRA website.

Q: Do I need to provide sick leave for my employees? Is there a standard number of sick days to offer?

A: In BC, there is no obligation to provide paid sick leave, and there is no standard number of sick days to offer employees. Paid sick days can range from zero to over 12 per year. However, we don’t recommend creating an “entitlement mentality” by saying employees receive a certain number of sick days per year, as they may end up using them whether they are truly sick or not.

For small businesses, if your unwritten practice has been to pay for a day or two here and there, then continue with that. You might want to put a cap on the number of consecutive days you will pay for (e.g. up to 5) so that employees don’t expect you to pay for extended illnesses. To come up with a number, you may want to think about what you think the average time off an illness will take for recovery – a couple of days, maybe more? A flu could knock a person out for a week and you definitely don’t want the employee to come in to work and infect everyone else if they’re worried about not being paid.

Also, we’d suggest after a certain number of days that you ask for a doctor’s note which confirms the employee is sick and the number of days they’re expected to be off. A common practice is to ask for a doctors note after 2 or 3 days of illness.

In BC, the Employment Standards Act does provide for some unpaid leaves of absence that employers need to be aware of.

Family Responsibility Leave is an employee-initiated unpaid leave of up to 5 days per year. This leave is designed to help employees deal with family problems that conflict with job responsibilities. This leave is a statutory entitlement, not something that may or may not be granted at the discretion of the employer. Family responsibility leave does not carry over from year to year if it is not used during the employment year.

Compassionate Care Leave provides that all employees are entitled to up to 8 weeks of unpaid leave within a period of 26 weeks to care for a gravely ill member of the employee’s immediate family. Gravely ill means the family member has a serious medical condition with a significant risk of death within 26 weeks.

Update: Looking for information on sick days in BC?