pebrown444

With all these holiday entitlement issues on the forum a quick question.

Do the Canadians work flexitime if the position can handle it?

Or as a brit who may need to travel home at short notice can you take a reduction in annual salary in exchange for extra holiday time?

I work for the local council and get paid slightly below average for my job but the trade off is with holiday, flexi, long service and stats I can get 48 days so for me that is worth a lower salary.

Though I think trying to swap money for holidays in an interview might show that you never want to be there. (sorry I am a brit, normal mentality)

scrubbedexpat074

My wife does both. Her boss allows every minute of over time to be reclaimed as flexitime. She also took August off last year without pay.

I wouldn't mention it in an interview though!

Cookie

My OH gets get a mixure of both paid overtime and some that is banked for time off.

During his interview when holidays, benefits etc was discussed it was the interviewer who brought the subject up. Mind you, he did have a 2 hour interview - all of which was very relaxed

burton bunch

Think we are quite fortunate as my hubby gets 4 weeks hold per year

He also has the option of February thru April to work on a Saturday for around 6 hours and then during the summer months he will work 1 Friday in every 3 - seems a pretty good deal to me as that will mean 2/3 of the summer he will have a long weekend. Time to do his gardening

Gay

x

iaink

Flex time depends on the job /employer like anywhere else I guess.

Many employers wont support either unpaid leave or reduced pay for longer vacations (basically the same thing?) for two reasons...firstly, if they do it for you, they have to do it for everyone, and secondly, the work still needs to get done, so they get hit for overtime or a temp to get the work done by someone else while you are away. However as an occasional thing I think most employers (not dbd though!) would understand if you needed to leave at short notice for compasionate (NOT VACATION) reasons. I wouldnt make a regular thing of it though!

It comes down in most cases to the concept that if you want to live in Canada, you have to play by the existing Canadian rules, and that means less holiday.

If you are happy with the rest of your life in Canada, its really not a big deal...family/ friends come visit you instead of you visiting them, and you make the most of your weekends. Its an annoyance, but not a deal breaker.

Better conditions are far more likely if you have extremely sought after skills and are looking at more senior positions, where perks are more common than nearer the bottom of the food chain.

Cookie

Grah

Well we merged with a new company from BC email sent out telling us we now have a company wide holiday "year" start date June 1st. and holiday from Jan 1st to MAY 31st would be available from then. all previously accrued will be available now.

Well after talking with new Director, my previously CEO and managers

New staff in BC are expected to earn holiday before taking it. Except where negotiated to take in the year. Which the Director said is every time as who the hell would work a year without a holiday. As for when holiday is available and really how much, there isn't a written policy. Managers are expected to say yes or no and if there is a problem it will be discussed individually.
As for pay amount, accountant adds a percentage to your pay slip to cover the days your not in on billable work.

Which is my biggest problem filling in "Time" accounting for every 6 minutes and 85% has to be billable.

Lies lies and who remembers.

Cookie

Back in the UK I worked in an office. We had to accrue annual leave from Jan 1st to March 31st every year to start with our full entitlement on April 1st. Of course if you left the company within the year than any annual leave taken above the pro rata was paid back in cash.

We also had to fill in weekly timesheets, billing our clients down to the nearest 15 minutes. Sometimes used to have dozens of job numbers per week.

Sarahad

My husband gets the 2 weeks paid annual holiday, which although this does not seem alot to some people in UK it was not really an issue to us as my husband was self employed in the UK so did not get any paid leave, if he was off he did not get paid... so 2 weeks paid hol is really good for us!
So far my husband has not used any of the paid leave (we only moved to canada in December) but he has needed quite a few odd days off to sort stuff out that comes with moving to a new country! His employer seems to be quite flexible and allows unpaid leave if needed.
I am also due to have another baby in July and my husband has the option of either working, take some paid leave or take some unpaid leave. So we are just going to see how things are when the time comes.
I know like the uk it will all depend on the employer, but so far we have found my husbands to be quite flexible.