Holidays, Time Off, and Leaves

Hypha offers several types of time off, not including extended leaves (short/long term disability, parental leave, etc). This table describes the basics of how each type of time off functions, but more detail is given in each section below.

In addition to the public holidays and winter office closure, employees should generally be taking a minimum of 3 weeks of vacation, using up your Legislated Vacation Entitlement first, then your self-directed days off.

Legislated Vacation Entitlement

Hypha complies with Ontario’s ESA Right to vacation - s. 33(1):

33(1) An employer shall give an employee a vacation of,

1. at least two weeks after each vacation entitlement year that the employee completes, if the employee’s period of employment is less than five years; or
2. at least three weeks after each vacation entitlement year that the employee completes, if the employee’s period of employment is five years or more.

Employees receive a Legislated Vacation Entitlement of 2 or 3 weeks, depending on their period of employment. At Hypha, people typically consider a ‘week’ to be either 4 or 5 days.

The table below shows how you can check the number of days you are entitled to, based on your average days per work week and the number of weeks you are entitled to. If your average days per work week changes, this will be reflected in your Legislated Vacation Entitlement on a prorated basis.

You have immediate access to your vacation days at the beginning of each year; no need to wait for them to “accrue” throughout the year. Employees hired mid-year are entitled to a prorated amount of vacation time for the year in which they are hired.

Unused vacation entitlement

Employees are strongly encouraged to use up all of their vacation as Hypha does not have a “roll over” policy to transition unused vacation days to the next calendar year.

It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that employees take their entitled vacation time during the year, including by scheduling vacation for the employee. If there is any unused entitlement at the end of the year, the employer must pay out those unused days as wages.

Hypha schedules the winter closure (3-5 days), which can be deducted from an employee’s remaining Legislated Vacation Entitlement at the end of the year to reduce the need to calculate and pay out unused days.

For example, in a year where the winter closure is 5 days, an employee ending the year with <=5 unused Legislated Vacation Entitlement days will not receive a payout, as the winter closure is considered to be vacation scheduled by the employer.

If an employee uses up the entirety of their Legislated Vacation Entitlement, they are still expected to observe the winter closure - it’s free vacation :) Please use up all your vacation days; it is in everyone’s best interest!

How to track vacation time

1. Inform your relevant coworkers (project lead, project teammates, working group) of your intended vacation.
2. Send an email to Operations with your vacation start and end dates, and the number of days you will be taking off. If you work <5 days per week, your usual day off should not be tracked as a vacation day (e.g.: if you don’t work Fridays in a regular work week, you are not taking Friday as a vacation day)
3. Operations will update the vacation tracking spreadsheet🔒
4. Block out your personal Hypha calendar with out-of-office/vacation time to ensure people don’t book meetings during the time you are away.
5. Set an out-of-office alert to your email and include a point-of-contact for folks to reach out to if the matter is urgent.

Self-Directed Vacation

The Legislated Vacation Entitlement covers Hypha’s legal obligation to provide paid vacation for employees. However, Hypha encourages employees to take more time off than their Legislated Vacation Entitlement.

Employees are generally trusted to make responsible choices about taking time off and fulfilling their work commitments. As such, project leads are generally expected to approve requests for days off, taking into account their client needs and commitments.

Hypha recognizes that the federally mandated spiritual, cultural, and religious holidays in Canada centre Christianity. Our team members may hold different beliefs and celebrate different faith-based, spiritual, and/or cultural holidays. We encourage you to take paid self-directed vacation days to do so.

As a general rule of thumb, an employee taking scheduled days off throughout the year (e.g., a one week vacation planned in advance) or sporadic days as needed (e.g., extending a long weekend) should not majorly impact the resourcing for the projects that they work on. Self-Directed Vacation is not intended to be a way to take sabbaticals or extended leaves from work.

Lieu Days

Hypha employees operate on a salary basis, which means we are paid a fixed amount for the work we contribute. A salaried position implies some give-and-take when it comes to hourly labour – some amount of underwork and overwork is expected on a per-week basis. Generally, this evens out, but employees should keep track of their own time commitment (e.g., 4 days of work per week) and inform their project lead when they are notably under- or over-worked (e.g., working 3 or 5 days on a 4 day commitment).

When a member works beyond the allotted days in their full work week, they are expected to take a lieu day at a later date so as not to overwork themself. For example, if Alice commits to working a four-day work week but ends up working five days in a particular week, they should work three days the next week (or within a reasonable amount of time).

Lieu days are self-tracked and arranged with the member's practice leads so as not to be disruptive to the project.

Public and Additional Holidays + Winter Closure

Our virtual office is closed during Ontario's nine public holidays. We recognize three additional paid holidays where the office is closed and employees are expected not to work:

• Civic Holiday (first Monday in August)
• May Day or International Workers' Day (May 1)
• Remembrance Day (November 11)

If you work outside of Ontario, you will observe your province or state’s public holidays, along with the additional paid holidays listed above.

Additionally, the virtual office is closed between Dec 27 and Dec 31 (inclusive) and all employees are expected not to work. If an employee has any remaining Legislated Vacation Entitlement prior to the winter closure, the closure days are deducted from the Legislated Vacation Entitlement days. If you have used all of your Legislated Vacation Days before this closure, you will still receive these days off with pay.

If a public holiday lands on a member's off-day under a four-day work week, the member should take one of the work days off as a make-up holiday.

Wellness Days

Wellness Days are paid days off for the purpose of health and wellbeing.

We have no policy limiting the number of paid non-consecutive wellness days that members take, which can include mental health days. Employees and members are expected to use wellness days responsibly and for their intended purpose.

All employees and members, regardless of their regular work week, are expected to check in with their project lead after 6 consecutive wellness days to help plan for project capacity and discuss the potential need for an extended leave.

Leaves of Absence

Some extended leaves of absence are covered by the Employment Standards Act, such as pregnancy or parental leave. Work with the Operations WG and your practice lead if an extended leave of absence is needed, such as for prolonged illness, burnout, personal issues, etc.