Achieve Balance

Take Time for Yourself

Whether it's for personal growth, self-care or to spend time with family, we give employees the opportunity to take planned leaves of absence through a number of different options, including:

  • Self-funded leave: leave without pay for 6-12 months, financed through planned deposits taken from the employee's regular annual salary.
  • Leave with Income Averaging: leave without pay for 5 weeks to 3 months within a given 12 month period. The employee's salary is reduced accordingly and averaged out over the year.
  • Leave without pay for care of family: leave without pay for 3 weeks to 5 years (with a maximum of 5 years total being allowed during an employee's career) for the purpose of caring for a family member (for example, this leave can be used to care for a young child).

We also offer more standard types of leave, including:

  • Paid annual vacation leave, starting at 3 weeks for new employees.
  • Maternity and parental leave, including allowances which, in conjunction with Employment Insurance parental benefits, amount to 93% of the employee's weekly rate of pay.
  • One paid personal day and one paid volunteer day per year in addition to vacation.
  • Family related leave to take a dependent family member to a medical appointment, for the immediate and temporary care of a family member, or for the birth or adoption of a child (in addition to regular maternity or parental leave benefits) - to a total of five days of leave with pay per year.
  • Bereavement leave with pay upon the death of a family member.
  • Paid leave for medical and dental appointments.
  • Sick leave with pay.

Work/Life Balance

At the CFIA, we strongly believe that employees must have our genuine support and must have real opportunities to balance their professional and personal lives. A balanced life is healthy, productive, and enjoyable.

As organizational experts suggest, work/life balance is about having a sense that we can control when, where, and how we work. This sense of control comes when our right to live a fulfilled life both inside and outside of paid work is accepted and respected as the norm. This approach to work and life benefits everyone: the individual, the organization, and society at large.

Our commitment to supporting work/life balance is reflected in our benefits package, through the importance we place on working in a collaborative and mutually supportive team environment, and via our support for our employees' involvement in extra-curricular opportunities.

Community Involvement

We encourage you to support the organizations or causes of your choice. To this end, most employees are entitled to one volunteer day each year in addition to their normal leave allotments, which may be used for the volunteer activity of their choice. With the many different types of leave options available at the CFIA, there are ample opportunities to spend your time doing the things you are passionate about.

In addition, we give back to the community through the Government of Canada Workplace Charitable Campaign on an organization-wide basis every year, and to many other causes in different offices across the country, based upon the initiative and interests of our employees.