Recharging batteries or piling on stress and liability?

Employee vacations are important and required by law, but employers can have trouble if they make them too hard to take

Recharging batteries or piling on stress and liability?

By Jeffrey R. Smith

Vacation leave is an important perk for employers to offer employees, particularly when trying to attract top talent. It’s a feature that can play a big role in the work experience, but at a relatively low cost to employers. It’s also something employers are required to provide, with employment standards in all Canadian jurisdictions requiring a minimum amount to employees — typically two weeks to start. It’s also a good retention tool if increasing amounts are offered to reward employees for length of service.

However, while vacation can be great, it’s not so much if the work environment doesn’t make it an easy fit. This is where employers have to be careful — it’s easy to say employees get so many weeks of vacation, but they also have to follow through and make sure the employees can actually take the vacation. This means planning for back-up and coverage during the employee’s absence.

Without such vacation planning, employers can not only risk ending up with stressed, disengaged, and less-productive employees, they could also face legal trouble. If there isn’t proper backup or preparation for an employee’s absence, it can be tempting for an employee to check in while she’s away — something that’s all too easy to do and becoming more common with technology keeping everyone constantly connected. And if this happens, it could mean the employee is doing work while she’s supposed to be on vacation and therefore not truly having the vacation to which she’s entitled — and risking a violation of employment standards legislation.

Another potential problem is if there isn’t sufficient backup or coverage for the employee, she has to do twice as much before a vacation and after to catch up, since things just won’t get done while the employee is away. This could lead to longer hours and unofficial overtime — and it’s been proven in some high-profile class action lawsuits that overtime doesn’t have to be approved to be owed payment for. Sometimes if a worker is given work that can’t be done in normal hours of business, then the employer is consider to have condoned overtime, regardless of whether it was officially approved or not. And once again, the employer is in contravention of employment standards legislation.

Sometimes, employees find themselves so busy they don’t get a chance to take vacation over the course of the year. Then, as the end of the year approaches, they are told they need to take some — or have it scheduled for them if the vacation can’t be carried over. This may not necessarily create legal liability, but would definitely cause some productivity issues in the workplace. If an employee has too many important things to do to take vacation during the year with no one else who can do it, what happens when she suddenly is gone for three or four weeks in a row at the end of the year? This can cause extra hardship for other employees, not to mention a pile of stress waiting for the employee when she returns.

It’s no good if arranging a vacation ends up causing more stress for the employee than not taking vacation and the employer ends up with legal liability! The law says employees must get some time off — and that means really off. Bon voyage!

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