Contents:

• Welcome
• What's New
• GrandMaster Update

Welcome!

February 2006 - Welcome to the latest edition of The Payroll News. As always, please feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends and associates who are interested in keeping up with the latest changes in the Payroll industry. Or better yet, subscribe them for free using the Tell Others About Us link.

Listed here are recent changes in legislation on Federal and Provincial levels that may impact your payroll calculations. Please view the following list for changes that affect your region.

FEDERAL:

Automobile Deduction Limits and Expense Benefit Rates for Business Confirmed - The Department of Finance has confirmed the automobile expense deduction limits and the prescribed rates for the automobile operating expense benefits that will apply in 2006. The ceiling on the capital cost of passenger vehicles for capital cost allowance (CCA) purposes will remain at $30,000 (plus applicable federal and provincial sales taxes) for purchases after 2005. The limit on deductible leasing costs will remain at $800 per month (plus applicable federal and provincial sales taxes) for leases entered into after 2005. (Full Story)

Changes to T4001, Employers' Guide - Payroll Deductions and Remittances - The CRA has made a number of revision to the T4001 Employers' Guide - Payroll Deductions and Remittances. Major changes include the inclusion of the contents of the Remitting Payroll Deductions guide (RC4163). Visit the following link to view a complete list of changes and to download an updated copy of the guide. (Full Story)

February 1, 2006 - EI tax information Slip On-line - Starting February 1, 2006, you will be able to view and print copies of your EI tax information slip on-line -- T4E. You can submit these copies with your Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) tax return. This service also offers the advantage of allowing you to stop the mailing of your tax slips for future years. Current Employment Insurance (EI) recipients can now use this service. (Full Story)

Alberta:

January 17, 2006 - Provincial program funds thousands of summer jobs - The Alberta government's 2006 Summer Temporary Employment Program (STEP) creates summer job opportunities and helps not-for-profits fund those jobs. Funding priority is given to project-based positions that contribute to a person's future employability. All positions must provide continuous full-time employment of 30 to 40 hours per week for a minimum of six weeks. Workers must be paid at least minimum wage. Funding from STEP provides $6.05 per hour towards the wage costs. (Full Story)

January 31, 2006 - Alberta developing strategy to build highly-skilled, educated workforce - The Alberta government is seeking input on a proposed strategy to address skill and labour shortages and enhance the province's capacity to respond to new challenges and opportunities in a knowledge-based economy. Building and Educating Alberta's Workforce builds on the government's current work to address labour force issues and proposes actions to: improve the supply of appropriately skilled workers; develop highly-skilled, educated, and innovative people; and foster work environments that can take advantage of innovation and technology. (Full Story)

January 25, 2006 - Improvements to Electronic Injury Reporting - Beginning January 25th, if you file WCB claims electronically, there will now be an easy way to update injury claims that go from No Time Loss to Time Loss. If an employee's claim changes from No Time Loss to Time Loss, you need to report the change to the WCB. Instead of typing up another C040, you simply Click on the tab that reads "New Report from Existing" then select "C040 Earnings Addendum" from the list and fill in the blanks. The employee’s basic information is automatically transferred over. (Full Story)

January 20, 2006 - Maximum Insurable Earnings Increase - The Alberta Workers Compensation Board reports that effective January 1, 2006 the maximum insurable earnings increased from $62,600 to $63,300. With this increase, 95% of injured workers covered by the WCB will receive benefits based on their full salaries.

British Columbia:

February 2, 2006 - Higher income possible for those most in need - Beginning March 1, 2006, income assistance clients receiving Persons with Disabilities or Persons with Persistent Multiple Barriers support will be able to earn up to $500 each month in addition to receiving their full shelter and support payment from the government, Employment and Income Assistance Minister Claude Richmond announced today. The latest increase to the earnings exemption for Persons with Disabilities clients brings it from $400 to $500 per month -- a 150 per cent increase overall. (Full Story)

WorkSafe BC Conference - Depression, Anxiety Disorders and Addictions in the Workplace - WorkSafe BC has posted an announcement regarding the upcoming conference designed to focus managers, business leaders, human resource specialists, union representatives, employees, benefit providers, and mental health service providers on the monumental task of reducing the impact of stress, depression, anxiety disorders, and addictions in the workplace. (Full Story)

Manitoba:

February 17, 2006 - Manitoba unveils more competitive construction industry wage schedules - Manitoba’s construction industry will see long-overdue increases to the construction industry wage schedules to help retain tradespeople in the province. The changes to the wage schedules affecting building projects in Winnipeg will see general average increases of 21 per cent over two steps on June 1 and Oct. 1. Existing rural schedules will be combined into one rural schedule with the wage rates increased to 80 per cent of the Winnipeg rate on June 1 and then 90 per cent on Oct. 1. (Full Story)

January 17, 2006- WCB Moves Forward on Recommendations of the Auditor General - The Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba received the report of the Auditor General today on governance, human resources and investment issues and is proactively implementing the recommendations made in the report. "As noted by the Auditor General, the WCB is in good financial condition," says Tom Farrell, WCB Chairperson. "The WCB had reserves of $70 million in 2004 and has posted above average investment returns in 2005." (Full Story)

January 17, 2006 - Government accepts recommendations of auditor general's review of Workers Compensation Board - Labour and Immigration Minister Nancy Allan today announced plans to address the auditor general’s recommendations to government on the Workers Compensation Board (WCB). The auditor made more than 50 recommendations, nine of which are directed at the provincial government. By passing the Workers Compensation Amendment Act, which was enacted with the unanimous support of the legislature and proclaimed into force on Jan. 1, the government has already taken action to address a number of the governance recommendations. (Full Story)

Newfoundland and Labrador:

February 3, 2006 - Commission’s SAFE Work campaign now targeting young workers - The Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission (the Commission), is launching a SAFE Work Newfoundland and Labrador red bracelet campaign and a young worker safety radio ad contest to further increase public awareness on the importance of occupational health and safety. Following this distribution, the SAFE Work red bracelets will be made available to all employers, workers and employer and worker organizations, says Mr. O’Neill. (Full Story)

February 10, 2006 - Spouses of deceased workers to receive retroactive benefits - Fifty-eight women whose husbands were fatally injured before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ equality rights provision (Section 15) was implemented in 1985 are going to receive a total of approximately $3 million in retroactive workers’ compensation spousal benefits. The government announced today that the provincial government will amend legislation to pay retroactive benefits to surviving spouses who re-married prior to 1985.
(Full Story)

Northwest Territories:

Employer Payroll Statements Form - The Northwest Territories and Nunavut Worker's Compensation Board has released a downloadable copy of the Employer's Payroll Statement for 2005 and Estimate for 2006 form. Visit their website at the link below to view this form. (Full Story)

Ontario:

January 11, 2006 - Ontario Government Raises Minimum Wage - The Ontario government is raising the minimum wage on February 1, 2006, for the third time since taking office, Labour Minister Steve Peters announced today. The general minimum wage will be raised to $7.75 per hour on February 1, 2006, and there will be a further increase to $8 per hour on February 1, 2007. (Full Story)

Calculate and Report Premium - The Ontario WSIB now offers a Calculate and Report Premium -- a new electronic service (eService) available to all Schedule 1 employers. To access the service, you need to sign up for eServices using their online subscription service, then you will be eligible to log in and access your account information and perform the payroll reporting, premium calculation and online payment functions through your financial institution. (Full Story)

January 17, 2006 - Community Partnership Helps Multilingual Workers - A unique, new community partnership with the Government of Ontario is helping to provide information to immigrant and multilingual workers about their employment rights, Labour Minister Steve Peters announced today. Protecting rights in the workplace and offering resources to help workers and employers achieve compliance with employment standards is vital to ensuring healthy communities and a strong Ontario. (Full Story)

Prince Edward Island:

February 2006 - 2006 Classification of Industries and Assessment Rates - The Prince Edward Island Workers Compensation Board has released a 25-page downloadable brochure of the 2006 Classification of Industries and Assessment Rates. Employers can use this information to find the assessment rates for every $100 of gross payroll and to find the rate that applies to their business. (Full Story)

February 17th, 2006 - New Occupational Health and Safety Regulations for Prince Edward Island - New Occupational Health and Safety Regulations will become effective May 1, 2006. George Stewart, Director of Occupational Health and Safety for the Workers Compensation Board, said "the Workers Compensation Board will be providing workshops for employers and workers on Regulations as well as a host of educational materials that will be available on the WCB website or at the Charlottetown office". (Full Story)

Saskatchewan:

January 5, 2006 - Wage increase announced for provincial child care centre workers - Saskatchewan's Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) sector will receive $11 million to increase wages of individuals working in licensed child care centres, beginning with a retroactive six per cent wage increase effective November 1st, 2005. The increase being provided consists of the six per cent increase effective November 1st, 2005, and a nine per cent increase effective April 1st, 2006. (Full Story)

February 10, 2006 - Minimum wage board reviewing two regulations - Saskatchewan's Minimum Wage Board has announced it will conduct a review of provincial regulations dealing with the minimum age for employment and the requirement that transportation home be provided for certain employees. The Board will also consider issues related to the employment sectors to which the regulations will apply. The Board will receive written submissions from February 15th to May 1st. (Full Story)

Yukon:

February 10, 2006 - Review of Yukon workers' compensation act moves into next stages - The panel conducting the review of the Workers' Compensation Act is inviting feedback on a paper outlining options for possible legislative changes to the Act. The three person panel conducting the review has scheduled a series of public meetings in Whitehorse, Dawson, Watson Lake and Haines Junction, beginning in early March, to gather input from stakeholders and other interested parties. (Full Story)

The current release of GrandMaster Suite (5.06) incorporates a number of changes to make it even easier to use the program and perform your payroll tasks. Program changes since our last Payroll News issue include:

• A new LTD deduction calculation method has been added - With this release we have added a new deduction calculation method, code 136, to calculate Long Term Disability premiums. The new code allows you to specify the Standard Hours Rate, Premium Rate, Maximum Monthly Earnings and a Benefit Percentage. This calculation method will determine the employee's monthly earnings by multiplying the Standard Work Week hours by 52 and then dividing the result by 12 then multiplying by the Standard Hours Rate. The result is then multiplied by the employee's base rate to establish the monthly LTD Coverage amount. This amount may be capped by the Maximum Monthly Earnings. The LTD Coverage amount is then multiplied by the Premium Rate to determine the employee's LTD deduction amount. Should a benefit be required you may assign a benefit amount as a percentage of the deduction.
• The Customized Payroll Report modified to allow reporting on current pay - We have added the option to create Customized Payroll Reports on current or non-closed payroll data. This new option can only be used for the session and will not be saved to your report definition. You will now be able to run the same reports that you produce on the history data on your current pay. This change will enable you to produce reports to ensure that critical information is present in the current pay prior to closing the pay. The History reporting option will remain as the default setting and you will need to consciously select the Current option in order to obtain report data on your current pay.
• The Turnover Report does not show all Hired employees - The Turnover Report did not include all active employees regardless of the date range specified when you asked for All Hires. Prior to this change the report would only list those employees who were hired within the date range. The employees who were already on staff would not be included in the listing. With this release you will see all non-terminated employees regardless of the specified date range.
• QPIP amounts incorrectly sub-totaled on Payroll Register Report - When you elect to have your Payroll Register Report sub-total on the sort option selected the QPIP amounts did not initialize on the sort break. This would result in each subtotal including the QPIP amounts from the prior sort. This has been corrected with this release.
• Option to exempt employee from QPIP calculation - On employee's Payroll Specific information an exempt box was added to enable an employee to be exempt from QPIP but still have EI deducted.
• Additional Pay calculation does not calculate tax - If you did a payout of an accumulator on an additional pay, with no other earning involved, the system was not calculating tax. This has been corrected.
• EI does not calculate properly when an employee has EI insurable benefits - In some cases when you have employees who have taxable benefits to which you are applying EI the resulting calculation was incorrect. When this occurred the employee would have an amount deducted for EI but the calculated figure was adding an incorrect amount of EI insurable benefits to the insurable earnings prior to calculating the deduction. We have corrected this problem with this release.
  

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Visit CanPay's News page and view the latest Release Notes for a complete listing of program changes.

Link Opportunity! - If you are a CanPay customer wanting more exposure for your Website, please send us a 50-word description along with a copy of your logo. We'll add you to our Customer Links page and create a link directly to your website. It 's a great way to expose your goods and services to the community. Logos should be a maximum of 160 x 70 pixels and provided in the .gif or .jpg format. Send your e-mails to admin@canpay.com.

Developing positive relationships isn't a new concept. In fact, the grandfather of all people-skills books, Dale Carnegie, first wrote about this topic in 1937. It was he who said 85 per cent of success was due to the "ability to express ideas, assume leadership and develop enthusiasm amongst people." Over the years, his time-tested techniques have enabled many now-famous people to climb the ladder of success.

But positive personal relationships and the ability to influence others in the workplace have become far more important than in earlier work years. For instance, seven of the top 10 key skills identified for occupational success in today's highly demanding workplace are all related to interpersonal and influencing skills.

So, what do good interpersonal and influencing skills consist of? The most critical interpersonal skill is that of being a good listener. Listening requires that you understand and accept how other people think and feel (remember, acceptance does not mean agreement). This enables you to gain their trust, to concentrate on what is being said and to understand the context of their viewpoints. Listening is also the tool that enables you to acknowledge a speaker and demonstrate you understand and appreciate their point of view.

Healthy influencing skills consist of the ability to almost unconsciously persuade people into acceptance of your ideas. There is no pushing or pulling, telling people what to do or intimidating them. Influencing is essentially interpersonal and communication skills subtly combined with effective assertiveness. As well, your influencing skills are strengthened by the ability to present clear and logical ideas in an enthusiastic and confident manner.

People with good interpersonal skills are typically those who develop the most influence and personal power in an organization. They are exciting to be around and are key to building positive personal relationships in the workplace.

Most of all, influential people are conscious of the fundamental principles of winning friends and influencing people and they apply these principles on a daily basis. While our workplaces have become more complex, the principles of winning friends and influencing people continue to be simple and pragmatic. The key is to understand and consciously apply them to build better relationships, enhance your visibility and move your career toward greater success. Review some of the following principles of effective interpersonal and influencing skills and start applying them right now.

Show genuine interest. Showing genuine interest makes people feel important. Use a person's name, ask them to talk about themselves, comment through honest praise and appreciation rather than trying to show that your experiences are equally valid or even better. Listen more than you talk.

Interpret personal agendas. Each of us, in any communication effort, has a specific objective in mind. You need to understand both your own objective and that of the other party. Are the objectives compatible or in conflict? Influencing others requires putting yourself "in someone else's shoes" so that you can discover their personal needs and try to find a way to work together.

Use open questioning technique. Open questions are those that require more than a "yes" or "no" answer. This gives the other party a chance to provide more information and perhaps offer a different perspective. It will allow you to understand what a person is thinking, what their values are and how they perceive the issue or opportunity you are presenting.

Listen for feelings as well as content. As you listen to the other party, listen for words and phrases that demonstrate the individual's attitude. What is their frame of mind? Are they co-operative, defensive, angry? Try to understand their feelings and before you respond to the content, acknowledge the individual's feelings and ask for clarification. This awareness and acceptance will help you gain their trust.

Listen for common interest. Listening also requires that you maintain good eye contact, demonstrate warmth and receptiveness to the other party while at the same time listening for areas of common interest. Refrain from interrupting. Listen more and talk less and follow the old adage of "listen first to understand, then to be understood."

Timing is all important. Influential people are more visionary and understand the big picture. In other words, think about where your idea fits in to what else is going on in a person's life. Is this the time to bring forward your idea or issue? Are there too many conflicting things going on that would thwart understanding or acceptance of your ideas? If so, this is not the right time.

Be clear, simple and direct. It is easier to persuade someone to do something if you communicate your goals clearly, simply and directly. This also demonstrates respect of people's time. Remember, people may feel subtly threatened or manipulated if you simply hint about your needs and/or use confusing and long-winded verbiage.

Practice constructive critique. Criticizing someone can be a powerful demotivator and will certainly impact on your ability to influence. Ask for an explanation and be sure to respect the other person's opinion. Assess and acknowledge the level of difference, but avoid becoming argumentative or humiliating the other person.

In today's work world, there is no getting away from it -- career success is based on more than simply job knowledge. Well-developed interpersonal and influencing skills are absolutely key. And it's not that these skills are difficult or hard to learn, it's more that people have to be much more conscious of applying the basic principles of good relationship development.

Sources: Editorial Review; Winning Friends and Influencing People, Dale Carnegie; Joan Price, Amazon.com; The Power of Influencing People, Dinesh K. Vohra, Indian Express, 2003.

Barbara Bowes, FCHRP, CMC is president of Bowes Leadership Group, a vice-president of the Women Business Owners of Manitoba and author of the Easy Resume Book: A Transferable Skills Approach. She can be reached at barb@bowesgroup.com.