ICBC – 2019 Vacation Scheduling for Certain Employees

2019 Vacation Scheduling Process

It’s just about time to start bidding for next year’s vacation again. This year marks the fourth iteration of a Letter of Understanding (LOU) around vacation scheduling. This year, as in the past three years, we have successfully negotiated improvements to the process based on feedback from members.

The information in this bulletin pertains to the following positions:

• Claims Adjusters (excluding Out-of-Province Claims and Commercial Claims)
• Injury Adjusters (excluding those in Out-of-Province Claims)
• Injury Adjusters at CCIC
• Supervisors Telephone Claims, Call Centre Coordinators, Customer Service Adjusters, Claims Contact Representatives at CCC
• Broker Enquiry Representatives, AP and Driver Services Representatives at BEU

Attached to this bulletin is an LOU regarding how you will bid for your 2019 vacation. We encourage everyone to take the time to read the LOU. Many of you will be familiar with the process of bidding vacation as this is our third year of trying to make the process more efficient and transparent. There are some new improvements again this year that are based on your feedback from the last three years.

Why Are We Making This Change?

To refresh your memories, Article 15 is no longer adequate for the way ICBC currently schedules and distributes vacation. It only provides a single deadline for vacation submissions. According to the collective agreement language, employees must submit their vacation selections to their manager by November 20th. Managers then must publish the vacation schedule by December 10. The flaw in that system, especially with large groups of workers, is that individual members could take until the deadline to submit their selections. In the past, this has often stalled the process and didn’t allow junior members an opportunity to select their vacation. That was certainly not the intention of the parties when it was originally negotiated, and so changes have been required to meet the needs of the employees.

To facilitate a more effective system of bidding vacation, the parties have agreed to replace the single deadline system with a four-deadline process. Members have reported that this has helped to keep the process moving along. As well, members can see the results after each bid, which in turn allows them to make informed choices for their next vacation selection.

What You Have Said About the Vacation Bid Process

The biggest complaint we have heard about bidding vacation is that members can’t see what senior people have bid and therefore they feel they are ‘bidding blind.’ Throughout the time we have worked on improving this LOU, we have stressed to the Employer the need to address this problem. We have not wavered in taking that message to the employer on your behalf.

In 2017, the employer agreed to a pilot project whereby each person would have an assigned time in each round to bid their vacation. Based on last year’s success with the Customer Contact Representatives at Driver Licence Customer Call Centre Victoria (DLCCCV), this year the employer has agreed to expand the pilot to include an additional two groups: Customer Contact Representatives I at DTVI, Customer Contact Representatives II and III at ICS. We are hopeful that the fears that ICBC seems to have about that system, specifically that it would be too difficult with large groups of workers, can be dispelled and we can further expand it again in 2020. From our perspective it is the far superior system and meets the needs of both ICBC and the members who want transparency in the vacation bid process.

2019 Vacation Bid

Again, we encourage everyone to take the time to read the most recent LOU however here are some of the key pieces of the agreement we reached with ICBC.

What We Kept from the 2018 Vacation Bid Process:

1.  Full Week Bids in Round 1 & 2:
In the first two rounds of vacation bidding, employees will be required to bid in units of a full calendar week. This will eliminate the chance of partial weeks being left unassigned, especially during the high demand times of the year.In the 2017 vacation bid, some members did not get a favourable vacation selection because of random days being taken, leaving part of the week open and part not. In the 2018 vacation bid Full Week Bids solved this problem and so we have kept in for the 2019 bid.Furthermore, at the call centres, this will also alleviate problems that can occur when work schedules get changed midway through the year. If you have the week secured, and your hours of work change, you will no longer need to scramble to alter your vacation to fit your schedule.

2.  Dropped or Abandoned Vacation Days:
At the end of the second round of bidding and prior to the commencement of the third round of bidding, employees will be able to drop any portion of their round 1 & 2 bids and that time will be replenished into their vacation bank.After the vacation bidding process starts, if days are dropped, either by members choosing as above or by members who leave the department, such days will not be put back into the vacation calendar until the entire process is completed. This will maintain the integrity of vacation awards of each round.

3.  Assigning Vacation and the ‘Call Back’ Process for Round 1 & 2:
Once the bid closes for round 1 and again for round 2*, the staff in the Workforce department will start to assign vacation in order of seniority and as per your vacation bid. If none of your choices can be awarded because all your selections are taken by senior employees, you will be entitled to a call from Workforce. To qualify for the call from Workforce you must have submitted a ‘bona fide’ bid.

A bona fide bid is defined as follows:
a.  The employee makes vacation selections from weeks that show available on the Vacation Calendar for that specific round of bidding;
b.  The employee submits at least 5 selections **;
c.  And submits at least 1 selection outside of July, August and the last two weeks of December (peak time).*There will not be call backs for rounds 3 and beyond.

You may submit as many selections as you wish. You are not limited to 5 selections and we encourage everyone in the mid to low seniorities to make more than 5 selections especially if you are hoping for peak time vacation. However, to qualify for a call back during round 1 and 2, regardless of your seniority, you must meet the requirements of a bona fide bid. Keep in mind that if you submit only five selections (four during peak time and one during off peak) and any of those are available, including the non-peak time bid, that is what will be assigned and there won’t be a need for Workforce to call you. You will be called only if all of your bids fail, including the non-peak time,  and you have met the above criteria.

We encourage everyone to bid for what they want, but to also be realistic when bidding their vacation. That means, if you really want summer, go for it! But also  give yourself some realistic options if you aren’t sure if you will hold peak time. Last year, many people didn’t bid for peak time vacation which they likely could have held, had they just put it down as an option so don’t be afraid to bid for your dream bid, just be sure you have a back up plan.

Some of the things we recommend you consider when bidding include your relative seniority in your work group, the size of your work group and the amount of vacation available on the Vacation Calendar during each round.

4.  Call Back Time Lines:
As you can imagine, with close to 1200 employees and multiple departments, the call back process needs to be streamline. Calls will take place between 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM from Monday to Friday. Workforce will call your work phone number first. However, since members could be on days off, have changed their hours of work, be away from the office, or be away from their phone for any number of reasons, each person will need to provide Workforce with an alternate number to avoid stalling the process.  Please make sure your contact information is correct with the employer.

If Workforce can’t reach you or your designate they will email you to let you know when they called and the phone numbers they called.If they reach you, they will let you know what vacation time is available so please be ready with other options. You won’t have time to call your spouse or check with others about what to choose next.If on the other hand they don’t connect with you, you will have 30 minutes to call them back before they move on to the next person. If you call back after the 30 minutes Workforce will still be able to help you with your vacation bid, however, you will be slotted in to the vacation bid next in seniority, at the time of your call.

5.  Final Results:
In an abundance of caution and to be sure as many people as possible get their vacation scheduled, we have agreed that the vacation scheduling process must be completed no later than December 22, 2018 instead of December 10.

6.  Two Job Stewards working with Workforce:
Once again, we will have two of your job stewards working alongside Workforce staff, helping with the call back process and making sure the process runs as we have anticipated. This will help ensure the agreement we have reached is followed; it will help to trouble shoot problems that may arise, and; most importantly it will ensure transparency.The job stewards this year are Kari-Lynn Bruce and Raj Dial. They can be reached at 778-368-6302.

What’s new this year?

1.  Acting Assignments:
We have resolved the concerns raised last year from members in acting assignments. For this year’s vacation bid, members on a acting assignment will be able to choose which group they want to bid with, either their acting assignment group or their original position group. This choice will be available on each round of vacation bidding. This will help members secure vacation during the entire year.Please be sure to bid on the appropriate calendar based on your acting assignment dates. For instance, if you are a Claims Adjuster in an acting assignment as an Injury Adjuster that goes until March 31, you may choose to bid for vacation on the Injury Adjuster calendar between January 1 and March 31 or you may choose to bid on the Claims Adjuster calendar so as to secure vacation between April 1 and December 31. Keep in mind that the language in Article 15.12 (f) still applies. Should you have questions on this specific issue, we recommend you discuss with Kari-Lynn or Raj prior to finalizing your vacation choices.

2. Vacation Bid Deadlines:
Last year we realized that we had set aside too much time between bids. This year the schedule will be as follows:

Bid Round Submission Deadlines
Round 1          October 17^th, 2018
Round 2          October 31^st, 2018
Round 3          November 14^th, 2018
Round 4 +      November 21^st, 2018

3.  Employees on LTD:
ICBC has agreed that employees who are on LTD during the vacation bid process will not bid on for vacation unless they have an established return to work date. This means that vacation will not be bid and held by someone whom it is unclear if they will return to work in 2019. In years past, this problem has resulted in junior employees not being able to secure vacation dates held by senior members who are off work due to illness or injury. Now, the dates will be available for bidding to those who are at work or have a return to work date.Anyone returning to work after the vacation bid is closed will not lose their seniority though. They will be able to secure vacation upon their return to work equivalent to what they could have held, had they had a return to work date secured.

We hope that these initiatives will help to meet the members’ need around bidding vacation. If you have any questions please contact atoth@moveuptogether.ca or ksmyth@moveptogether.ca.

In solidarity,

Annette Toth
Vice-President

Kevin Smyth
Senior Union Representative

File Number: 18-ICBC-BLTN-ART15-2019 Vacation Scheduling for Certain Employees-October 9

Union Label: AT/KS/ae:usw2009

Reply to: aearwaker@moveuptogether.ca