ksingh123

Hi,

i work in bank in UK and get 33 paid holidays each year(apart from 8 bank holidays) . Today I had discussion with HR of one of the major bank in toronto regarding job opening and was bit surprised when she said that they can offer "GENEROUS" 20 days paid holidays as one of the extra benefit of joining their bank.

My Canadian cousins use to envy whenever they saw me jetting to European or African holiday destinations from London every 3-4 months and that too on dirt cheap flight prices(the cheapest one i ever got was London to Milan for £2.49 on Ryanair).Now I can truly understand their pain

is 20 holidays really generous as per Canadian standards?

christmasoompa

Yes. Very much so. There's a Wiki article about it - https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Annual_Leave-Canada

And tons of threads too, if you search the forums.

Does that 20 days include statutory/bank holidays? Might be worth trying to negotiate them up if you really want the job.

scrubbedexpat091

Is 20 days paid annual vacation?

If its 20 days paid annual vacation its double the minimum required in my province which is only 10 days per year, so not too shabby really, I've never worked anyone who would go beyond the minimum required.

In my province companies are not required to close for stat holidays, so while banks typicalyl do, as do schools, government etc, a lot of places choose to stay open on stat holidays, so depending on industry one may or may not get stat holidays off.

If its a province where 10 days is the minnimum and there are 10 stats in the province and they are considering that the 20 days off per year, its not so grand then.

dbd33

You need to know if you can actually take some or all of those 20 days. That's not an easy question to ask at an interview but what you can do is to ask about the year end vacation roll over policy. If the interviewer immediately knows that, say, 3 days can be carried at 17 cashed, you'll know that they can offer all those holiday days because the culture is such that no one takes them.

ksingh123

I am not entirely sure as it was the very first contact i had over the phone. she mentioned "UPTO" 20 holidays. So this could be dependent on years of service or maybe some sort of salary sacrifice to buy more holidays.

Which province you are in ? I am in Ontario.

if its really 10 I am going to get then its 23 less than UK. Means working for an extra month in Canada for free. I don't think pay package on offer justifies that at all.

ksingh123

Is cashing holidays common in Canada? over 13 years career in UK for 4 employers; only PWC was fine with the idea of employee taking cash in lieu of holidays(that was in back in 2011) . for other 3 employers policy strictly stated that only 5 roll over annually and rest must be used before 31st December.

in recent year for the sake of mental well being of employees many employers have put in policy of mandatory 1 full week taken off work every 6 months.2 years ago I also received reminder email from HR that I have not taken 5 days off in a row in last 6 months and I should consult my manager.

dbd33

I don't think you have the concept of the workplace in Canada. Very many people do not want to take vacation and you are competing against them. Taking holidays is just not the done thing culturally. Even if you're willing to sacrifice career progression air fares from here are limiting.

dbd33

The trend here is against allowing cashing in. That doesn't mean taking the days but giving them up for nothing. Apart from the general workplace culture against vacation there's peer pressure brought about by team, rather than individual, performance goals. If the team has a goal and someone on the team takes a vacation, the person taking the vacation will cost his or her colleagues money, that doesn't go over very well.

ksingh123

You are spot on here with my level of awareness about work culture in Canada.

I was expecting Canadian work life culture to be same as UK and was certainly looking at things through British prism. Looks like I am in for bit of a shock

scrubbedexpat091

Likely depends on industry, but lots of people take vacations or else all those flights south in the winter to Mexico wouldn't exist.....

In BC anyhow the law is written in a way to encourage employers to have their employees take their vacation time, in the event you happen to work in an industry where it is frowned upon, unused time is either paid out end of the year or rolled over depending on company policy.

In my experience companies will not rollover as they do not years of vacation on the books, so they just pay out end of every year any remaining balance. .

However I have never work in one these everyone will screw everyone else to climb the coprorate ladder, or it was union and everything was set out in writing and treated the same.

sharkus

On the flip side of the "not taking holidays" thing, my employer is actively telling us to book vacations and don't sit on the days. We can only roll over, I think, 5 days to the next year. In fact I don't recall the company ever being anti holiday.

Siouxie

In Ontario two weeks - i.e. 10 days - plus stat vacation days (public holidays) is standard.. for up to 5 years of employment (when it increases to 3 weeks (i.e. 15 days)) - but you can negotiate higher.
https://www.employerline.ca/employer.../vacation-pay/
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your...ublic-holidays / https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-age...-holidays.html

Jimbo2012

That hasn't been my experience, in fairness. Most people I work with take their full allocation, usually in the summer and Christmas, and are encouraged to do so. Any rolling over (5 days max) has to be used by the following March. So, unless you are heading somewhere during March break, it's hardly worth rolling any over.

There are a few that are reluctant to take vacation (or actually check in when are they on vacation), but I think that speaks more about the individual than the over-riding culture. I met many people with this mindset when I worked in the UK too.

Jimbo2012

20 Days PLUS Stats = generous

20 Days INCLUDING Stats = not so much.

It sounds like the former based on the context of your post.

Also it's worth a mention that Canadians are generally more apt to compare themselves to the US rather than Europe, so not all of them will necessarily feel hard done by in terms of holiday entitlement.

That said, some of my Canadian colleagues do react with surprise when I explain that 25 days (+8 BH) is often a typical starting point in the UK workplace.

dbd33

Of course it depends on the workplace but just today I enjoyed someone complaining, not to me, "you've taken away my responsibilities, you've effectively demoted me" to a response of "you weren't here, you went away". The person's status and reputation will never recover. He should have let the holiday days expire, not taken them.