British Columbia just celebrated its first Family Day, the second of ten mandatory paid statutory holidays throughout the year. Statutory holidays across the country vary in number. BC leads the pack with Saskatchewan and Nunavut with ten per year, followed closely by Alberta and several others with nine. Some provinces such as Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have only six. Great for employees, but what do the extra holidays mean to employers?
Well in British Columbia employees receive 4% of their pay on Statutory Holidays without even having to show up for work. This is a huge expense to employers but one that may pay off in higher productivity in the long run.
BC employees were looking for a break in work between January 1 and Easter and were only too happy to spend an additional day with Family on February 11th. For hard working employees, which I am happy to say we have lots of at Red Seal, this was a much needed break. Visiting family out of town, getting caught up at home and taking a few days out camping were all on the list of things completed. For top performing employees this break will undoubtedly mean higher productivity. Higher productivity teamed with the right communications, rewards and vision results in a better company bottom line.
Canada has a long way to go to climb from our ranking of 14th in the world related to productivity per hour worked, we may be climbing a little bit higher this week with the addition of an extra day off between January and March.