Amended December 1, 2021
The suite of policy instruments applicable to executives is amended periodically by the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) – Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer (OCHRO). These changes apply to organizations in the core public administration.
Significant changes were made effective April 1, 2020, and more recent amendments were effective April 1, 2021, and September 1, 2021. To ensure that Executives are informed, APEX is publishing summaries of the key changes. The official TBS-OCHRO communication material is available on GCpedia (Government of Canada internal site).
Changes Effective September 1, 2021
This series of changes amends statutory holidays and parental leave provisions, institutes caregiving leave and domestic violence leave, adds a clause to bereavement leave and amends the definition of family for purposes of care of family leave, leave for family-related responsibilities and bereavement leave.
Key Changes Made to the Directive on Terms and Conditions of Employment for Executives effective September 1, 2021:
- The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (September 30th) was added as a paid statutory holiday.
- There are now two options for parental leave:
- The standard option of up to 37 consecutive weeks, which provides the executive with 93% of their weekly rate of pay less their Employment Insurance (EI) benefits; and
- The extended option of up to 63 consecutive weeks, which provides the executive with 55.8% of their weekly rate of pay, less their EI benefits.
- A new caregiving leave without pay provision was added. Executives in receipt of, or awaiting, EI benefits for compassionate care, for family caregiver for children or for family caregiver for adults, may be granted caregiving leave of up to 26, 35 or 15 weeks respectively, plus the waiting period.
- A new domestic violence leave with pay provision of up to 75 hours per fiscal year was added. It defines domestic violence as any form of abuse or neglect that an executive or their child experiences from someone with whom the executive has or had an intimate relationship. The Directive specifies under what circumstances and for what purpose domestic violence leave will be granted.
- Bereavement leave provisions were amended to include, once in a career, a person who stands in place of a relative for the executive.
- The definition of family was amended:
- to include son-in-law, daughter-in-law and a person who stands in place of a relative of the executive, for the purpose of leave without pay for care of family;
- to define family for the purpose of leave with pay for family-related leave; and
- to add a person who stands in place of a relative for the purpose of bereavement leave.
Changes Effective April 1, 2020, and April 1, 2021
Changes were made to the Policy on People Management and the Policy on the Management of Executives and their related instruments effective April 1, 2020. Further to feedback received, OCHRO amended some of the instruments. These new amendments were effective April 1, 2021.
Key amendments to Directive on Terms and Conditions of Employment for Executives effective April 1, 2021:
- LC and DS executives are subject to the “Agreement to being deployed” provision and are eligible for special deployment.
- “Agreement to being deployed” becomes a condition of employment for any employee deployed or appointed (except acting appointments) to an LC-01, LC-02, LC-03, DS-07A, DS-07B and DS-08 position on October 1, 2021, or later.
- Employees whose substantive position is at the LC-01, LC-02, LC-03, DS-07A, DS-07B or DS-08 level on September 30, 2021, will not be subject to the “agreement to being deployed” provision until they are deployed or appointed (with the exception of acting appointments) to another position, or until October 1, 2023, whichever comes first.
Therefore, by October 1, 2023, all employees occupying LC-01, LC-02, LC-03, DS-07A, DS-07B and DS-08 level positions will be subject to this condition of employment.
Key amendments to the Directive on Terms and Conditions of Employment for Executives effective April 1, 2020:
- Executives who reach 15, 17, 18 and 25 years of service on or after April 1, 2020, accrue additional vacation leave at these service milestones. This change was not retroactive for executives who had already attained these milestones as of April 1, 2020.
- To be eligible for performance pay and in-range salary movement, employees must:
- be appointed to an executive position, including through an acting appointment of less than four months;
- have a completed performance assessment;
- have achieved a minimum performance rating of Level 2 (Succeeded Minus); and,
- have completed a period of three consecutive months in the position during the performance review period.
- The requirement for an executive to be on strength on April 1st to be eligible for performance pay for the previous performance review period was removed.
- Employees appointed (excluding acting appointments) or deployed into a position at the EX-01 to EX-03 level on or after April 1, 2020, agree to being deployed as a condition of employment. Employees whose substantive position was at the EX-01 to EX-03 level on April 1, 2020, are not subject to this condition until they are deployed or appointed (with the exception of acting appointments) to another EX group position or until April 1, 2022, whichever comes first. (This was already a condition of employment for employees whose substantive position is at the EX-04 or EX-05 level).
The Directive on Performance and Talent Management for Executives was amended effective April 1, 2020, to make it mandatory for managers of executives to establish learning and development plans, complete talent assessments and communicate the results of talent assessments to executives.
The Directive on Performance and Talent Management for Executives was also amended effective April 1, 2020, to allow Deputy Heads to authorize retroactive revisions of performance ratings and recovery of performance pay, following due process, in situations where this may be warranted.