Available for: Standard, Premium, Platinum, Unlimited User access: Admin
Use a Leave of Absence (LOA) to record extended statutory leave for Canadian employees, including parental, medical, or compassionate care leave.
Employment Hero automatically updates the employee’s status to On Leave, sets their base pay to zero, and schedules key reminders for tasks such as the Record of Employment (ROE), benefits continuation, and the employee’s return.
In this article:
Important reminders before you begin
- Benefits do not stop automatically: Selecting "No" records your preference, but does not cancel coverage. To stop premium deductions, remove the employee from the benefit policy in both Employment Hero and the insurance carrier’s portal.
- Seniority and vacation continue accruing: Canadian provincial Employment Standards require accruals to continue during statutory leave. If your organization does not accrue leave under a specific custom policy, manually remove the employee from that policy during their leave.
Getting started
The Leave of Absence type comes pre-configured for Canadian organizations and is ready to use immediately.
To review or adjust settings:
- Go to Settings > Time & Attendance > Time Off.
- Click the three dots (Actions) next to Leave of Absence.
- Select Edit type to modify settings (such as color or unit tracking), or select Manage assignment to adjust employee eligibility.
Note: The policy name cannot be changed, and the policy cannot be deleted.
Admins create leaves on behalf of employees; no prior request from the employee is needed.
- Go to Time > Time Off Management.
- Click + Request time off.
- Select the employee from the Personnel dropdown.
- Choose Leave of absence as the time off type.
- Select the leave reason, then enter the start date and estimated return date.
- Answer the benefit continuation and offboarding checklist questions (detailed below).
- Click Submit.
Note: If the employee has not met provincial minimum service requirements, an advisory warning appears. You can acknowledge this warning and continue submitting.
When asked "Will benefits be extended during this leave?":
- Yes (default): Enter the required Extend benefits to date. Employment Hero assigns a task to the Benefits+ team to maintain insurance coverage, along with a task for payroll to set up premium recouping.
- No: A waiver warning appears reminding you that opting out may impact insurance and disability claims. Tick the acknowledgment box to confirm you discussed this with the employee before proceeding.
When asked "Do you want to trigger the offboarding checklists for this employee?":
- Select Yes to initiate the pre-configured Leave of Absence checklist.
- This checklist assigns two default tasks to all admins:
- Issue ROE: Due shortly after the leave start date.
- Arrange benefits premium recouping: Due before the estimated return date.
To customize checklists, go to Settings > Recruitment and Onboarding > Onboarding and Offboarding Checklists.
- Status update: The employee’s status changes to On Leave.
- Payroll adjustment: The employee stays in pay runs, but their base pay is automatically set to $0 during the leave.
- Accruals: Seniority and standard leave continue to accrue.
- ROE alert: You will receive a reminder to issue an official Record of Employment via your payroll provider due to the interruption of earnings.
Managing an existing leave
Open the approved leave, update dates or details, and save. The request re-enters pending status for approver re-approval, and any associated benefits tasks automatically update.
- ROE: Daily email and dashboard to-do until marked complete.
- Premium recouping: Daily email and dashboard to-do until marked complete (if benefits were extended).
- Upcoming return: Daily reminders begin 7 days before the estimated return date.
- Overdue return: Daily reminders continue until the employee is manually reactivated.
Employees do not return to active status automatically. When the employee returns, manually reactivate them on their profile to restore regular payroll processing and clear the On Leave badge and notifications.
Leave details remain viewable in read-only mode by opening the request. Managers can view leave status on their home dashboard and in the shared Time Off calendar.