Dalhousie has once again been named one of Canada’s Top Family-Friendly Employers for 2013, appearing in today’s Globe & Mail.
Since Dalhousie was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers for 2013 in October, the university was also eligible to receive other awards, including the Family-Friendly Employer. The designation celebrates employers who offer the country's most progressive family-friendly benefits: “forward-thinking” programs for employees with young children and efforts to help employees balance work and family commitments.
Dalhousie joins Simon Fraser University and the University of Toronto as the only universities on the list of 20 organizations nationwide selected for the award.
Dalhousie offers a host of family-friendly benefits, including a number of leaves that are available to employees.
Sabbatical/educational leave and salary deferral program
The sabbatical/educational leave and salary deferral program have both been available to Dalhousie employees since the early 1990s. If approved by the university and they meet the eligibility requirements, employees can take a leave of absence for a period of more than six months, but less than one year. In advance of taking one of these leaves, employee can defer a portion of their salaries to finance the leave.
Jim Neale, from Employee & Organizational Development, a unit within Human Resources, is currently on a nine-month leave and is taking advantage of the salary deferral program. He is traveling around the world with his wife, an adventure he's planned for years. As an employee, you can start deferring a portion of your salary up to six years prior to taking the leave of absence.
Visit Jim’s travel blog to see and hear more about his adventures.
Similar leaves are also available to staff at the Agricultural Campus through the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU) collective agreement. Sabbatical leaves for faculty members and educational leaves for instructors are within their respective collective agreements (Dalhousie Faculty Association and Civil Service EDC Agreement) so that they can pursue research or educational opportunities.
Other leaves
Parental leaves offer a variety of options for employees, with a top-up portion paid by the university for eligible employees of up to 95 per cent. For example, a parental leave is available for biological fathers for up to ten weeks for eligible employees. For faculty members, time spent on parental leaves counts towards accumulation for a sabbatical and tenure stream faculty members have the option of having their tenure consideration deferred to account for time spent on parental leaves.
In addition, a bereavement leave is available, which is a paid leave of absence of up to five days for employees who have experienced a loss of an immediate family member. There is also a compassionate care leave for employees who may need to look after a seriously ill, family member on a longer-term basis, and a leave for family illness when a sick parent, spouse or child requires care for up to five days.
For information about these leaves, please consult the respective collective agreement or handbook. These are available on the HR website under Employee Relations (Dalhousie Professional and Managerial Group, NSGEU Local 77, NSGEU Local 99, Civil Service Master Agreement, Confidential, Clerical and Secretarial) and Academic Staff Relations (DFA, Civil Service EDC). The educational leave and salary deferral program policies are available on the HR website under Policies and Guidelines.