Topic For Disussion

Evelyn,

You have chosen one particular policy here to discuss so I would like to comment on vacation entitlement.

Vacation entitlement is one of those "benefits" we all hear about that are outside of an employee's salary. 1 week of vacation pay is equal to 2% of the base salary. Benefits are one of the things that employees and potential employees look at to determine if a job is worth having or worth accepting. Like it or not, being paid not to work is a right in the work place.

In today's employment environment, you are seeing people with some long term tenure leaving a position (either on their own or being redundant/laid off/etc.). These people sometimes have significant vacation benefits in their pocket. To go from that job to a job with another employer that have a strict policy about 2 weeks for the first 5 years puts a question into their mind about the position.

I speak from this situation first hand. I have been employed steady since leaving college until late 2008. At that time I no longer had work and began looking for work. As you can imagine I had enjoyed a number of benefits - vacation entitlement was one. When I found another position, the hiring manager went to their HR department and his manager to change the offer of employment to include vacation entitlement to match what I had been used to. The reason given was that as a long-term employee (outside of the firm) I should be given benefits in line with employees with similar tenure and not be considered the same as some greenhorn out of college. He did this on his own - without my request.

My point in all of this is that in order to attract quality talent - you need to make the position as attractive as possible. A policy is fine, but latitude is required and re-visting the policy to keep competative is prudent.

We all know about the staff exodus.... I think this is a step towards making the jobs attractive enough to stay.

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I don't dispute  the points made above. I do not   pretend  expertise in the area of  human resource management.

 I offered a number of possibilities in my post for  new  hires  being given three weeks vacation to start as opposed to two weeks as provided in the Town's policy.

The point of the post  was about  delegating authority which had previously  been Council's to the Chief Administrative Officer. I am  not  objecting to the merits of the recommendation.
Policies should be subject  to review  to determine continued relevance.

At the same time, when an elected body delegates authority to the administration, at the very least, they should know exactly what they are   handing over.


There were  pages of numbers and titles of policies in the report.No particulars.

In my judgement, the task  calls for  going through the list one by one.

If  an item is  simple housekeeping  an outline is sufficient.

Without cost impact , the decision is simpler still.

In the private sector, employees are expected to keep salary details confidential.

In the public sector, that is an element  but  public accountability and transparency come into play.

The  private  sector pays close attention to public sector wages and benefits. They feel it puts pressure on private sector  employment costs.

I  don't believe the public sector should lag behind, in the competition for  an experienced work force, but our comparators are other  public sector employers. Not the private sector.
We  also have in our work force,  union and non-union members. Non-union members  receive  equal consideration when an agreement is signed.

Giving non-union members a benefit not enjoyed by union members is  not conducive to harmony in the work place, 

As can be seen from the various factors, a change in vacation entitlement is not a simple housekeeping item.

Council is accountable to taxpayers.

Council must make the decision.

I don't know it from experience but I understand  public sector benefit entitlements are far and away beyond what  the private sector provides.

My post was not about benefit entitlement. It was about Council's accountability to the people who elected us.