Canada’s banks pay workers extra for going to office

Bloomberg

Canadian banks are giving their workers extra pay for going into the office or manning branches during the coronavirus pandemic.
Most of the country’s biggest lenders are offering an additional C$50 ($34) a day to those employees who aren’t able to work from home. They join US counterparts including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Capital One Financial Corp. in paying extra to workers who are still required to come into the office as the highly contagious virus spreads.
Toronto-Dominion Bank is offering a special one-time award of as much as $1,000 and as many as two additional paid vacation days for employees who are required to come to a bank location for “vital work,” according to a March 23 memo to its 89,630 employees, who are mostly in Canada and the US.
“This benefit will be made available to part-time and full-time colleagues who work in branches, stores, contact centers and operations who are required to come into a TD location to do their job,” Kenn Lalonde, executive vice president for human resources, said in the memo.
Bank of Nova Scotia is offering Canadian employees who don’t have the option to work from home an additional C$50 a day for additional disruptions and incurred expenses, the Toronto-based bank said in a memo to employees. The offer runs at least until the end of April, with similar measures being put in place for the lender’s international operations.
Bank of Montreal is providing a stipend of C$50 a day to employees in Canada who can’t work from home and are required to be at the office to perform their duties, the Toronto-based lender said in a statement. Those at the company’s US operations get $50 a day.
At Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, employees required to be on site will get a C$50 per diem, according to spokesman Tom Wallis. The Toronto-based bank is also providing as much as 10 additional days of paid time off for any employee facing hardship from the impacts of Covid-19.
National Bank of Canada started a special indemnity programme, giving C$50 a day to employees whose physical presence is required at offices or branches, with the goal of compensating for taxi rides, parking or other expenses, spokesman Claude Breton said.
Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest lender, is taking similar measures.
“We have today introduced a new daily compensation program of C$50 per day for day-in, day-out support of our employees working on site during this crisis, whether in our branches, advice centers and operations centers — or any location and role where working from home is not an option,” spokeswoman Gillian McArdle said.