Federal Personal Leave (PL), Bereavement Leave (BL), and Leave for Victims of Family Violence (LVFV)

These updated partially paid Federal Leaves apply to employees who fall under the Canada Labour Code Part III:

Federal Personal Leave (PL)

Federal Personal Leave (PL) requires that employers provide up to 5 days per calendar year of personal leave. Employees no longer need to work three months to be entitled to leave; however, if employees have three months of continuous service, the first three days of leave will be paid. 

Federal Bereavement Leave (BL)

Federal Bereavement Leave (BL) requires that employers shall grant up to 5 days of absence upon the death of a member of their immediate family. For employees who have completed three months of continuous service, the first three days of leave will be paid. 

Federal Leave for Victims of Family Violence (LVFV)

Employees who are themselves, or are the parent of (a) child(ren) who are, a victim of family violence, are entitled to a leave of up to 10 days in a calendar year (to seek medical attention or other services).  5 of the 10 days are to be paid.

Creating a leave entitlement benefit for PL, BL, or LVFV will require two components:

1. A Benefit Code where the leave day entitlement will be accrued for each year.

2. An Earning Code that will reduce the entitlement and pay for only the first three leave days taken in the year.

   Note: For consistency throughout this article, Personal Leave will be used as the example.  Setup process of Bereavement Leave will be extremely similar & Leave For Victims of Family Violence will be, again, along the same lines, but with some numbers altered in the formulas.

Table of Contents

• 1. Create a Benefit Code for PL entitlement
  • 1.1. Deduction Data tab
  • 1.2. PL Entitlement Formula
  • 1.3. Formula tab
  • 1.4. Save the PL entitlement Benefit Code
• 2. Create an Earning Code for PL taken
  • 2.1. Earning Data tab
  • 2.2. PL Taken Formula
  • 2.3. Code Formula tab
  • 2.4. Save the PL taken Earning Code
• 3. Program Options
  • 3.1. Max Leave Taken Options
• 4. Add the Earning and Deduction/Benefit Codes to the employee(s)

1. Create a Benefit Code for PL entitlement

The benefit code for the PL entitlement will keep track of how many leave days an employee is entitled to take in the current year, and reset the entitlement at the start of each calendar year.

Let’s go through the steps to create the Benefit Code for the PL entitlement:

1. Open Canadian Payroll > Employer Payroll Tables > Deduction/Benefit Codes

2. Create a new Benefit Code for the PL entitlement.

The Deduction Data settings and an Entitlement Formula will be added to the Benefit Code in the following sections.

1.1. Deduction Data tab

The settings for the Deduction Data tab should be setup as follows:

Using these settings on the Deduction Data tab the benefit code will be used as a leave entitlement for the employee that will accrue entitlement in days.

1.2. PL Entitlement Formula

By using a formula in the Benefit Code to generate the accrued entitlement the number of accrued days can be limited to 10 per year, and the province of employment can be checked so that only employees who are employed in Ontario will have the entitlement.

Formula

@IF(L6=0,5,0)

Variables

For the LVFV entitlement code, the formula will be:

@IF(L6=0,10,0)

1.3. Formula tab

• Enter the entitlement formula into the Leave Units L0= field.

1.4. Save the PL entitlement Benefit Code

The benefit code setup is now finished and the code can be saved by pressing OK at the bottom of the Benefit/Deduction Code window.

The next component for the PL is to create an earning code to record when employees actually have taken a leave day, and pay them accordingly. This will be covered in the following sections.

2. Create an Earning Code for PL taken

An Earning Code for recording the PL taken by employees will be created now. This Earning Code will be responsible for reducing the entitlement days each time that a PL is taken, as well as ensuring that the first 2 days of taken are paid.

1. Open Canadian Payroll > Employer Payroll Tables > Earning Codes.

2. Create a new Earning Code for PL taken.

2.1. Earning Data tab

The settings for the Earning Data tab should be setup as below. These settings will make the Earning Code reduce the leave entitlement automatically whenever PL taken.

2.2. PL Taken Formula

Formula

Variables & Values

This formula will limit the payments to only the first three days of leave. Starting on the third Personal Leave day there will be no payments only time.

For the LVFV Earning/Take Leave code, the formula will omit the requirement for 3 months of employment, and will pay the first 5 days, rather than 3:

Formula

@IF( L8#XXX- L0#YYY<5,0, W1* C1)

2.3. Code Formula tab

• Enter the leave taken formula into the Work Units U0 and Earnings E0 fields as specified.

2.4. Save the PL taken Earning Code

The Earning Code setup is now finished and the code can be saved by pressing OK at the bottom of the Earning Code window.

3. Program Options

In order for this new process to calculate the leave entitlement units accurately you will have to add the following options to the Program Options.

1. Open System Administration > System Parameters > Program Options.

2. Add the MinLeaveTakenCodes option:

   Option Id	Py.PayCal.MinLeaveTakenCodes
   Description	List of earning code where a minimum leave taken units will apply.
   Value	YYY

   Replace YYY with the code of the PL taken Earning Code

3. Add the MinLeaveTakenUnits option:

   Option Id	Py.PayCal. MinLeaveTakenUnits
   Description	List of Minimum leave taken units matching to Py.PayCal.MinLeaveTakenCodes.
   Value	1.0

   Any amount of hours lower than the total hours per day will be considered 1 day for the emergency leave code.

3.1. Max Leave Taken Options

The final option that will need to be added is for the maximum units of leave that will reduce the entitlement. The maximum units can be calculated using two different options:

• The first option is to choose a maximum for each entry.

• The second option is to choose a maximum for each day.

1. Add either MaxLeaveTakenUnitsPerEntry or MaxLeaveTakenUnitsPerDay option.

3.1.1. Per entry option

The per entry option takes a maximum of 1 day even if the total hours of leave for that day is over the regular hours per day for that pay group.

For example if an employee gets paid 10 hours of Personal Emergency Leave in a pay group where the per day hour is 8, this program option will make sure to deduct 1 day of Personal Emergency Leave not 1.25.

3.1.2. Per day option

The per day option is for employees with split shifts. This option will calculate 1 unit of Personal Emergency Leave taken even if there is more than one entry within the same day.

For example if an employee works two shift of 4 hours in the same day and requires two 4 hours entry of Personal Emergency Leave, this option will let the system know to only deduct 1 day of PL.

4. Add the Earning and Deduction/Benefit Codes to the employee(s)

The formula’s included under the earning and the deduction/benefit codes will only return a value if the employee has a province of employment set to Ontario. Which means that these two codes could be added to a pay group by using the “Employment Defaults” option.

If you have any questions or experience any difficulties please reach out to the Care Team.  Thank you.