Canada is entering into uncharted territory with the possibility of business shutdowns and employees not being able to come to work.  If your business needs to shutdown or individual employees have been requested to self-isolate or quarantine, use this guide to help submit the proper forms to Service Canada to do your best to help your employees.

Before you shut down operations or employees go on leave:

• Do any employees have a vacation balance they would like paid out?
  • To find out what they have in their vacation bank hover over REPORTS and select DYNAMIC REPORT on bottom left of the reports menu 
  • Do not enter ANY search field items but change REPORT TYPE from General to Vacation- Click Search
  • The bottom of the page will show you vacation balances. Ask each employee what they would like to do.
  • If employees would like vacation paid out please run a payroll for any amounts owed. If you are closing down you may want to include any regular earnings as well.
  • See this article here to pay out vacation balances: https://help.paymentevolution.com/hc/en-us/articles/210263483-Release-and-pay-out-vacation-balances
  • If you/your employees decide not to pay out vacation at this time, no need to worry, it will be there when they return to work.  When you terminate you will be notified of the balance owed to the employee, you can proceed to terminate and this balance will remain.

Ready to shutdown operations or employees are self-isolating/quarantined

• Issuing ROEs
  • After you have paid out any amounts owing you need to issue ROEs for your employees.
  • Use the guide here to create your ROEs and submit to Service Canada (ROEWEB) https://help.paymentevolution.com/hc/en-us/articles/205660085-Record-of-Employment-ROE- **HINT- don’t be alarmed by the word “terminate.” Terminate just means a “break of employment.”
  • When creating your ROEs, think about your situation as the reason for issuing. If your business is temporarily shutting down, use Code A (Shortage of Work).  If employees are sick or quarantined use code D (illness or Injury).  If an employee refuses to come to work due to risk of exposure enter Code N (leave of absence) For a complete list of reason codes pleas see here: https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/ei/ei-list/reports/roe-guide/instructions.html#block16   *Disclaimer- the above suggestions are made in conjunction with consultation with the Canadian Payroll Association and may change without notice.  Please contact Service Canada directly if you have any questions about the codes to use.
  • If you paid out vacation prior to terminating the employee please fill in the dollar amount in block 17A and select pay type in block 16. Do NOT enter a date in block 17B for this payment
  • If you started with PaymentEvolution in the last year and the employee has been with your company longer than that you may need to enter further information in Block 15 A, B and C if you did not issue ROEs before changing payroll providers. PaymentEvolution can only fill-in earnings from when you started running payroll with the software.  Past earnings, have been entered in bulk so we do not have access to the breakdown required by Service Canada.  You can manually change the amounts in these boxes.  For information on how many boxes to fill in or what to put in these fields please see this guide here: https://help.paymentevolution.com/hc/en-us/articles/205660085-Record-of-Employment-ROE-
  • If you are issuing ROEs for multiple employees please follow this process for EACH employee and download all your .BLK files so you can upload all of them on the next section.
  • We are also offering a unique service to businesses who need some extra help at this time to know what is the best way to proceed to help their employees and their business. We have a team of Hx (Human Experience) consultants standing by ready to help. They can help with questions such as: · What should we be doing for our employees? · How to manage business during this time · Do I lay off my staff? What does that look like? · What government programs are available to me? How do I find them? · Business needs to continue? How do I plan for this? · I’m having a tough time keeping a brave face for my employees, who can I turn to? · Can you hand hold me on the steps to do the right thing for my employees? Tip Human resource experts are available to help you answer these questions and more. Contact us to get started.

Submitting ROEs to Service Canada:

• Sign In/Register for ROEWEB https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/ei/ei-list/reports/roe-web-admin-guide.html#h2.1

• Follow the steps in this article to submit your Records of Employment to Service Canada.

Employees

Employees can use this reference guide to learn how to apply for, and maintain, their EI benefits:

• Information on the Additional Sickness Benefits if you are ill or quarantined that waive the 1 week wait period: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-sickness.html
• Employees can contact Service Canada at 1-800-206-7218 Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 4:30 p.m. local time, and press "0" to speak to a representative
• Provincial health links
  • AB https://www.alberta.ca/news.aspx
  • BC https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/public-health-alerts
  • MB https://www.gov.mb.ca/health/publichealth/index.html
  • NB https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/ocmoh.html
  • NL https://www.gov.nl.ca/releases/r/?ndept=Health
  • NS http://www.nshealth.ca/covid19-news
  • NT https://www.hss.gov.nt.ca/en
  • NU https://www.gov.nu.ca/health
  • ON https://www.publichealthontario.ca/
  • PE coming soon
  • QC https://santemontreal.qc.ca/en/public/
  • SK https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/news-and-media
  • YT coming soon