The Canadian Paid Sick Days Calculator
How much can adopting Paid Sick Days save your business?
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The Canadian Paid Sick Days Calculator
No matter what kind of business you run – you don’t want your staff infecting others. The benefits of Paid Sick Days are well known to business. That’s why Better Way Businesses support paid sick days because they’re good for business. Statcan & Ontario Government data indicate employees take an average of 3.1 paid sick days per year. A small investment to ensure consistency and health in your organization.
Whether you’re creating a brand-new program or increasing the number of days you offer, we know the math to figure out how many paid sick days you can afford can be daunting. That’s why we created this paid sick days calculator for you to use as a template!
Have questions? Reach out and we’ll answer.
Getting started with the calculator
If you’re starting with a blank slate on paid sick days, you probably want to wade in the pool before diving. Many of Ontario’s top health organizations recommend 10 paid sick days per employee/year. However, every business is different and, just like wages, finding the right balance for your unique business matters.
We’ve designed the calculator so that you can change the wage rate and number of paid sick days per year to determine the cost of starting a paid sick day program at your business. Some BWA businesses flex the number of days offered up and down throughout the year on an as-needed basis (think flu season) and others offer a set amount each year. Depending on your business, both models offer value.
Although we’ll never stop touting the business benefits of paid sick days for all staff – your business is dependent on many factors. Launching a successful paid sick day program for your staff requires constant evaluation and feedback.
How to Use the Calculator
In our example, the infamous wizard twins Fred and George Weasley offered a program of 4 paid sick days for all employees at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes (WWW) in 2021.
WWW employed 4 staff that year and paid them each $20 per hour (paid out in galleons and knuts, of course).
A terrible bout of Wizard Gout ripped through the wizarding population in 2021. Thankfully the Weasleys had a plan in place to cover sick employees. All sick hours taken were covered by a staff person paid $20 per hour.
Inputs in the PSD calculator
Here’s how Fred and George used the paid sick days calculator to figure out the cost of their program.
First, they plugged in the number of paid sick days that each of their staff members took (e.g. Employee 1, Employee 2, etc.) in the “sick days claimed” column.
Next, they wrote in the corresponding number of daily hours each staff member usually works in the “hours worked per day” column. For example, Employee 1 works 8 hours per day, while Employee 3 works 4.5 hours per day.
Finally, they plugged in each staff person’s hourly rate into – you guessed it – the “hourly rate” column in the paid sick days calculator. The Weasleys know it’s great for business to pay fair wages, and they offer a $20 hourly wage to all their employees. They also plugged in $20/hour in the Covering Employee’s “hourly rate” column.
Then the paid sick days calculator works it all out – as if by magic!
Outputs from the PSD calculator
It turns out that employees took an average of 2.4 sick days each in 2021, compared to the 4 days offered to each person. Taking fewer days than offered is a common experience amongst Better Way Alliance member businesses and Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes is no different.
The paid sick days calculator also determines that it cost Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes a total of $1,605 to pay for all sick days taken in 2021.
Compare this to their daily sales revenue for the same year, an average of $3,000 per day. That means the program pays for itself – and some! These paid sick days kept WWW open by making sure their sick employees stayed home instead of working sick and infecting their wizardly colleagues.
By staying open, they were able to continue producing Wheezes instead of shutting down the whole business.
Do You Need Help?
Launching a new Sick Day Program at your business may seem daunting – but many have done it to great success. If you’re still lost, reach out to our expert team and we can help you figure out what’s best for your enterprise.