HR Home › Forums › Answer for We are a small non unionized employer in BC. Several years ago we changed our sick leave policy so that employees could no accumulate paid sick leave days without end to no rollover to the new fiscal year. In addition, we eliminated the pay out of sick leave credits when the employee leaves. When we did this we grand-parented in any existing employees. We are now at the point were one employee has changed jobs within the company to a much higher salary rate and they have at least 5 months of paid sick leave on the books. If they leave we are paying out a lot if it has to be at the current salary. This liability is growing and we would like to pay it out and end the increasing liability. Can we do this? What do we need to do to do it? Should be just bit the bullet and do it for all of the employees who are still grand parented? Or can we simple figure out the salary the employee was earning at the time the sick leave was accumulated and pay out at that rate?
Here’s Alan’s response. Feel free to follow up.
Glenn:
The answer depends on what these people’s contracts of employment were at the time of hire and when the person changed jobs. For example, if the offer letter incorporated the company policies by reference and stated the employer had the unilateral right to change these, then the employer would probably be able to limit its liability in the way expected.
This isn’t so much an employment standards issue as one of contract law, so without more details it’s little hard to give a more precise answer