If you work for a major bank, courier company, telephone, airline or trucking company, you You may have a new employee benefit coming to you.
About one million workers in Canada are regulated by the government and on Dec. 31 of these workers will be eligible for up to 10 sick days per year.
Federally regulated employers will be left to bear the costs associated with implementing this new employee benefit. To be eligible, employees only need to have been employed for 30 days prior to Dec. 31 to receive their first three paid sick days.
Since then, every month since Feb. 1, 2023, federally regulated continuously employed workers will earn up to 10 days of paid sick leave each month in 2023. The announcement, made by the Government of Canada this week, will affect 19,000 government-regulated employers.
According to the new law, a sick day can be taken for personal injury or illness of an employee, to go to medical facilities and for periods of confinement. Notably, employers are only allowed to request sick leave after the employee has taken at least five consecutive sick days.
Although many employers are giving themselves time to adapt to the new costs associated with this law, the lack of medically based sick days may be even more worrying especially in the context of remote workers.
But, if the employee has a tendency to get sick and the employer is not allowed to ask for a sick note to confirm the illness, that leaves the employer throwing darts in the dark. The employer is left with no idea if the employee is ready to return to work or if he needs accommodation.
Employers are, in fact, required by the Human Rights Commission to make inquiries of employees who may need accommodation at work. This is because employers interact with employees on a daily or weekly basis. When an employee is unwell they are usually first noticed by their co-workers. Employers, by law, are required to ask employees who may present as unwell, whether they are doing well or need additional help or services, including medical assistance. The organization’s new sick day policy that expressly removes the requirement for medical notes for less than five consecutive sick days will certainly have a negative impact on employers who make any inquiries at all.
While every employee has a right to privacy, including the nature and diagnosis of an illness, this right to privacy must be consistent with long-established medical residency law in this country. Employers should be encouraged to provide services to employees who may need them instead of being discouraged from supporting employees if they are uncomfortable by not asking any questions at all.
Employers without policies reflecting the new rules should move quickly to implement approved paid sick day rules in your workplace. Employers who are aware of workplace culture will establish these policies to seek employee involvement in workplace sleep procedures.
If an employee is taking 10 days of paid sick time per year (or more) there may be reasonable cause for concern for the employer. These concerns should not be ignored but addressed directly.
