Contents:

• Welcome
• What's New
• GrandMaster Update

Welcome!

May 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:

May 15, 2006 - CPA Issues New Cheque Specifications in Preparation for Cheque Imaging - The Canadian Payments Association (CPA) has published new specifications for Canadian cheques in preparation for the transition to image-based clearing. Under the new specifications, all cheques used by customers of financial institutions operating in Canada will require some changes. The new specifications, as outlined in CPA Standard 006, Part A, are necessary to ensure that high-quality cheque images can be captured, both for clearing purposes and for delivery to clients, and to enhance processing efficiency. (Full Story)

May 1, 2006 - HRSDC Releases 2005 Monitoring and Assessment Report - HRSDC has released the 2005 Employment Insurance Monitoring and Assessment Report that focuses on the period April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005. The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, tabled the report in Parliament on April 28th, 2006. The report monitors and assesses the impacts of the Employment Insurance system on the economy, communities and individuals. (Full Story)

May 2006 - MAC support added for ROE Web service - The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) today announced the prescribed annual interest rates that will apply to any amounts owed to the CRA and to any amounts the CRA owes to individuals and corporations. These rates are calculated quarterly in accordance with applicable legislation and will be in effect from April 1, 2006, to June 30, 2006. (Full Story)

May 1, 2006 - Federal Labour Minister recognizes workers' commitment - The federal Minister of Labour, the Honourable Jean Pierre Blackburn, recognized the commitment of Canadians as part of International Workers' Day, which was celebrated on May 1st in many places across the world. This day marks workers' efforts and achievements with respect to the improvement of their working conditions since the beginning of the industrial age. (Full Story)

April 7, 2006 - Bank of Canada Reassures CSB Payroll Savings Program Clients - The Bank of Canada today expressed its satisfaction with the successful investigation by the RCMP and the Ottawa Police Service of an incidence of fraudulent activity related to a small number of Canada Savings Bond Payroll Savings Program accounts. The police investigation culminated in arrests announced today. (Full Story)

March 13, 2006 - Government of Canada launches Summer Work Experience 2006 program - The Summer Work Experience 2006 program being launched today by the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. The program will provide funding to create meaningful summer employment opportunities for more than 75,000 students. Additionally, it will fund the operation of approximately 320 Service Canada Centres for Youth to help students across Canada find summer employment. (Full Story)

Alberta:

May 1, 2006 - Alberta Works puts more money in the pockets of those most in need - Effective May 1, close to 12,000 Albertans who face significant challenges that prevent them from working will get a five per cent increase in the monthly financial benefits they receive through Alberta Works. "I have always felt strongly that more help is needed for those who cannot work," said Human Resources and Employment Minister Mike Cardinal. "This increase demonstrates our commitment to helping those most in need and will add up to an extra several hundred dollars more per year for those who cannot rely on jobs to make ends meet." (Full Story)

April 21, 2006 - Investment in Work Safe Alberta helps keep workplaces safe - To help keep workplaces safe in Alberta's strong economy, the Work Safe Alberta budget will increase to $14 million in 2006-07, an addition of $2 million over last year. Human Resources and Employment will hire nine additional staff to inspect worksites, work with employers, update legislation and develop best practices to improve safety on Alberta's worksites. The additional funding will also go towards developing new resources, such as e-learning tools, to help people stay safe on the job. (Full Story)

April 24, 2006 - Alberta Works six-month debit card pilot first of its kind in Canada - Making it more convenient for clients and streamlining administration are key goals of a new six-month pilot project that is using debit cards and direct deposit instead of traditional paper cheques to deliver Alberta Works benefits. "Alberta Works is about giving Albertans a hand up and transitioning people to employment," said Mike Cardinal, Minister of Human Resources and Employment. "This pilot is the first of its kind in Canada and we hope it will help clients get the support they need more efficiently and effectively." (Full Story)

April 26, 2006 - Alberta companies earn a record $68 million in WCB PIR rebates - Employers from across Alberta are scrambling to attract and retain qualified workers. Some of these employers understand that investing in safety gives them an edge -- they don't lose valuable employees to needless, avoidable injuries. The investment is paying off for more than 6,000 employers registered in the Partners in Injury Reduction (PIR) program who have a Certificate of Recognition (COR). They reduce WCB claims and related costs through the development of effective workplace safety and disability management programs. Now, they're sharing $68 million in PIR rebates for their 2005 performance. (Full Story)

British Columbia:

April 3, 2006 - Changes modernize B.C. employment and assistance act - Amendments to the B.C. Employment and Assistance Act and the Employment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act -- introduced today in the B.C. legislature -- modernize eligibility criteria, obligations for income assistance clients, and conditions for sharing information. "These amendments reflect our commitment to provide British Columbians with an income assistance system that is fair, caring and sustainable," said Claude Richmond, Minister of Employment and Income Assistance. (Full Story)

April 7, 2006 - 13,000 new jobs created, unemployment hits 30-year low - British Columbia created 13,000 new jobs in March, while the unemployment rate fell to 4.4 per cent, the lowest rate in 30 years, Finance Minister Carole Taylor announced today. Compared to March of last year, B.C. recorded the fastest rate of employment growth of all provinces at 4.0 per cent, creating almost 85,000 new jobs. Full-time employment increased by 16,900 jobs in March, while the number of part-time positions decreased by 3,800 jobs. Since December 2001, 85 per cent of new jobs created in the province have been full-time. (Full Story)

April 19, 2006 - Young workers need more training, orientation, and supervision - WorkSafeBC has joined with more than twenty employer partners across the province to raise public awareness that young workers need specific training, orientation, and supervision. Today's breakfast at the Inn at the Quay in New Westminster marks the beginning of a province-wide initiative where eight B.C. communities will focus on young worker safety. (Full Story)

Manitoba:

April 1, 2006 - Manitoba Minimum Wage Increases April 1 - Manitoba's minimum wage will increase by 35 cents to $7.60 an hour effective April 1, continuing the government's commitment to help lower-income earners and maintain the buying power of the minimum wage. The minimum wage was $6 an hour on Dec. 31, 1999. The increases have been introduced in increments of 25 cents an hour every year up to 2005, bringing the rate to $7.25 an hour. The 35-cent scheduled increase was announced in December and represents a total increase of 26 per cent since 1999. The next scheduled increase for the minimum wage is April 1, 2007, when the rate will rise by 40 cents to $8 an hour. (Full Story)

April 13, 2006- WCB Annual Report Shows Strong Financial Performance - The Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba (WCB) released its 2005 Annual Report today, showing a substantial operating surplus, above average investment results and a continued commitment to reducing the time loss injury rate in the province. The WCB provided employers with the advantage of the lowest average assessment rate across the country in 2005 at $1.70 per $100 of assessable payroll. (Full Story)

March 16, 2006- Workers Compensation Board Receives Diversity Leadership Award - The Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba (WCB) has been recognized for its achievements in workplace diversity. Last night, the WCB was awarded a Silver HR Leadership Award by the Human Resource Management Association of Manitoba (HRMAM) that recognizes the organization's work in order to "successfully promote cultural awareness, employment equity, and multiculturalism." (Full Story)

New Brunswick:

April 1, 2006 - WHSCC Annual Report Presents Positive Results - The Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission (WHSCC) released its 2005 Annual Report today, a report that highlights considerable gains for both the injured workers and employers of New Brunswick. "I am very proud to report to our stakeholders that the Commission has achieved full funding status. This is great news for employers -- full funding provides for stable rates by reducing the impact of year-to-year fluctuations, disasters and other unexpected events," says Robert Scott, Chairperson of the Board of Directors, WHSCC. (Full Story)

Newfoundland and Labrador:

March 29, 2006 - Increased income support rates will add up to reduced poverty - Budget 2006 will make major investments in a broad range of programs and services that will help the working poor, youth-at-risk, and families with low incomes, says Paul Shelley, Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment, and the lead minister for government's poverty reduction strategy. In the most substantial increase in recent memory, income support rates will increase by five per cent for the approximately 45,700 recipients across the province. This involves $5.6 million in 2006-07 and an annual cost of $7.4 million. (Full Story)

March 23, 2006 - Government partners with industry to address demand for skilled labour - To meet the demand for skilled labour and to position our province to fully participate in emerging opportunities, business, labour, education and other key stakeholders will begin work immediately to aggressively develop the province's workforce. Joan Burke, Minister of Education, said today a Skills Task Force has been established as part of government's overall direction regarding education and innovation for Budget 2006. (Full Story)

Nova Scotia:

April 26, 2006 - Nova Scotia employers now able to access WCB accounts online - Employers across Nova Scotia now have online access to their Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) accounts - saving time, saving paperwork, and ultimately, helping to save Nova Scotians from workplace injury. The convenient web-based business tool will allow employers to track injury in their workplaces, with the ultimate goal of reducing their claims costs, and ultimately, reducing their premiums. (Full Story)

April 1, 2006 - Nova Scotia WCB Release Annual Report - In 2005, more than 90 Nova Scotians were injured on the job every day -- over 34,000 last year. If all the people injured on the job gathered in one place, it would be the third largest city in the province. More than 9,000 of these injuries were serious enough that the person lost time from work. One person died on the job every two weeks. While Nova Scotia's injury rate went down slightly in 2005, it is still amongst the highest in Canada. In addition, once injured, Nova Scotia workers stay off the job longer than in every other province. (Full Story)

Ontario:

May 9, 2006 - Partnership Between WSIB and CRA Wins 'Best Practices' Award - Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have been awarded the 2006 Canadian Project Excellence (CPEX) "Best Practices" Award for their joint employer registration program. The joint program identifies employers who may be registered with one organization, but not the other. By ensuring registration, programs can be administered consistently and fairly to everyone, all businesses in Ontario will compete on a level playing field, and employees will be eligible for all the benefits and services to which they are entitled. (Full Story)

May 22, 2006 - Victoria Day a public holiday under employment standards act, 2000 - Many employees will get the day off with public holiday pay on Victoria Day on Monday, May 22, 2006. Victoria Day is one of eight public holidays under Ontario's Employment Standards Act, 2000. Employees who qualify for Victoria Day entitlements can be full-time, part-time, permanent or on a limited-term contract. They can also be students. It does not matter how recently they were hired or how many days they worked before Victoria Day. (Full Story)

April 27, 2006 - Ontario government proposes new chair for WSIB - The Ontario government is continuing the renewal of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) by nominating a new Chair. The new Chair will continue the work begun by Hutcheon to rebuild the WSIB and ensure a strong agency for future workers and employers. The WSIB has already made great strides in its efficiency, effectiveness and financial stability. (Full Story)

March 28, 2006 - Paper Released On Extending Mandatory Workplace Safety And Insurance Coverage - The McGuinty government is starting consultations on a proposal to extend mandatory workplace safety and insurance coverage to most people who work in construction, Labour Minister Steve Peters announced today. "This consultation is part of a broader government strategy to tackle the underground economy in construction, protect workers and business from unfair competition and promote strong economic growth." (Full Story)

Saskatchewan:

May 11, 2006 - Hundreds of jobs for students listed on Saskyouth.net - Students across Saskatchewan who are looking for work this summer should add the www.saskyouth.net website to their Internet "favourites" folder. Hundreds of career-quality jobs through the Government of Saskatchewan's $2.2 million Student Employment Experience program have been posted to the site. Positions through the Green Team, a program that supports employers hiring students in the environmental sector, will also be added later this month. (Full Story)

April 13, 2006 - Business mentorship receives support - Saskatchewan entrepreneurs have a new tool for success with the creation of an organization that supports business mentorship in the province. The Business Mentorship Institute of Saskatchewan Inc. will provide information resources, training, access to a database of mentors and protégés, and marketing and promotion services to organizations which currently operate, or have an interest in implementing, a business mentorship program. (Full Story)

Yukon:

March 31, 2006 - Yukon employment standards board increases minimum wage - The Yukon Employment Standards Board has informed Glenn Hart, minister responsible for Consumer and Safety Services that they have increased the Yukon minimum wage from $7.20 to $8.25 per hour effective May 1 and that the minimum wage will, in future, increase relative to the Consumer Price Index from the preceding calendar year, on April 1 of each year, starting in 2007. (Full Story)

March 31, 2006 - New fair wage schedule rates for government contracts - As a reminder to all contractors bidding on Yukon government contracts, the planned increases to the Yukon's Fair Wage Schedule become effective this April 1. The Employment Standards Board recommendation to increase the Fair Wage Schedule by 10.9 percent and index it to the Consumer Price Index was supported by a large majority of the respondents during a public consultation undertaken during the summer of 2005. The updated Fair Wage Schedule below represents the 10.9 percent increase, plus the 2.2 percent increase from the Whitehorse Consumer Price Index increase from Jan. 1, 2005 to Dec. 31, 2005. (Full Story)

The current release of GrandMaster Suite (5.08) 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:

• Added Statutory Hours Report to payroll Report options - We have added a new report option, Statutory Hours Report, to provide you with an export file and/or a hard copy report showing the average hours and earnings for a specified date range. This new report will be useful in assisting you to determine the hours to pay employees for a Statutory Holiday. The report gives you a summary of hours and earnings, based on the earnings you select to be included in the report, and then averages the totals of hours and earnings to supply you with the average hours and earning dollars for the range. This can also be useful to assist with costing the holiday.
• QPIP amounts displayed for provinces other than Québec - If you have employees who split time between Québec and other provinces, the Payroll Register Report was displaying QPIP amounts to those provinces. QPIP should only be calculated on earnings within Québec and not on any other provinces. This has been corrected with this release.
• Journal Entry .csv export file includes a second header record - If you export Journal Entry data to a Comma Delimited file (.csv), the resulting file would include a second header record if you had selected to include the header record in your file. We have corrected this problem with this release.
• EI amounts are not stopping at the 2006 maximum - In some cases EI amounts did not cease when the employee had reached the 2006 yearly maximum amounts. This problem seemed to be isolated to instances where you had run a Reversal Pay calculation to reverse the first pay of the year. Further, if you had entered a Pay Period Override to an employee earning after he/she had reached the yearly maximum the resulting calculation would increase the employee EI benefit amount to a value greater than the yearly maximum. This has been corrected. On the next pay calculation the overages will be reversed bring the totals to the yearly maximum and will be correctly reflected in your Journal Entry.
• The Cheque Register Report adjustment - If you print the Cheque Register Report for a Reversal Pay calculation, the report included only one employee and the reversed totals were incorrect. This problem occurred when the pay sequence that was reversed had not had cheque or EFT statements printed, essentially a non-event. However, we have made a change to the Cheque Register Report to provide the data from the Reversal with the cheque number replaced by the text "Non-Issued" to indicate that statement had not yet been printed. Further, if you print a range of sequences the resulting report will now include all relevant employee information. Additionally, a change has been made to ensure that the totals accurately reflect the data in the report.
• Earning Rate adjustment when Rate Tables are used - When you enter employee Pay Adjustments or a Pay Period Override to an earning that is using a rate table to establish the rate, an incorrect rate appears during the data entry process. This would occur when you have multiple earning rate tables that are defined with date ranges. The rate initially found during the data entry process would come from a non-current rate table. When re-entering the Pay Adjustment or Pay Period Override dialog box the correct rate will now be present. This has been corrected with this release along with a similar problem that was occurring during the Add Employee to Payroll process.
  

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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.

Being great takes hard work (Part 2 of 2)
Barbara Bowes

First of all, you need to consider the widest possible feedback and input from as many avenues as possible. Plan to conduct a survey of senior managers to get their feedback of the current state of affairs within your company. Ask about strategic leadership and how this impacts on such HR areas as recruitment and retention, training and development and your organizational culture. Determine if there are any inconsistencies in these management level views and if there are, take steps to develop a more consistent team approach.

Next, conduct an employee survey. Ask for their views on credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie, as these are the types of factors that contribute to creating a great place to work. Ask for their input on what is going well and what can be done to improve. Conduct several focus groups of employees and external customers to gain more knowledge about various issues. Finally, analyze all of your information, identify the major gaps, prioritize the areas needing improvement and develop an implementation plan.

Then consider making some initial changes in areas that will bring about a "quick win." However, because most of the planned changes will be more complex and time consuming, you can expect that 18 months to three years will go by before you see any major results. Thus, it is important to both manage the expectations of everyone in your company, while at the same time, working hard to keep up the momentum.

While some companies continually seek the limelight of public recognition, most do not. However, since one of the key purposes of implementing change is to increase your ability to attract and retain employees, it's important to share your success with the world. While there are several local and national awards that accept nominations, one opportunity to be recognized is through the annual Human Resource Management Association's Leadership Awards.

This three-year-old award program is designed to provide recognition to companies that have demonstrated measurable and outstanding improvements with respect to HR practices, programs or services. Platinum, gold, silver and bronze recognition categories are awarded for HR initiatives that vary in scope, degree of challenge, overall impact on the organization and which have been in place for at least two years. This year, over 10 companies, mostly the larger and more sophisticated corporations have submitted their profile for consideration.

On the other hand, I know that many of our smaller companies have also been striving to apply human resource strategies that focus on improving their work environments. And I know that many smaller companies have already gained a powerful yet informal reputation as a great place to work. So, hopefully next year, these smaller entrepreneurial folks will put aside their shyness and proudly stand up for public recognition.

Source: Greatest Place to Work website, 2005. HRMAM news release, March 2005.

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.