New Employment Standards Rules in Effect November 1, 2020

In July, the Restoring Balance in Alberta’s Workplaces Act was introduced. The employment standards rules are intended to save employers time and money.

Many of these new rules are taking effect November 1, such as:

• Adding flexibility to rules for hours of work averaging arrangements to make it easier for employers to set up arrangements, create schedules, and calculate overtime.
• Helping youth find work, and reducing red tape and administrative burdens by expanding the types of jobs 13 and 14-year olds are allowed to do without first needing a permit. Employers are still responsible for the health and safety of young workers, and parents still have to provide their consent for 13 and 14-year-olds to work.
• Clarifying that employees continue to accumulate vacation time while on a job-protected leave.
• Clarifying rules for rest periods and flexibility in scheduling breaks.
• Creating simpler and more flexible rules for general holiday pay average daily wage calculations.
• Creating more flexible rules for payment of final earnings upon termination that allows employers to align payments with their payroll cycles.
• Allowing employers to quickly correct payroll errors, or recover vacation pay paid in advance, because written authorization is no longer required from the employee to deduct an amount that was overpaid on a paycheque. Employers are still required to notify employees that an amount will be deducted from their paycheque.
• Giving employers more time to pay administrative penalties if they receive a penalty for breaking rules.
• Decreasing payment amounts for administrative penalties on a case-by-case basis.
• Removing specific timing requirements for temporary layoff notices. Written notices are still required.
• Clarifying that employees can get electronic pay statements as long as they have confidential access and can print a paper copy. This was already accepted in practice, but is now expressly allowed in the law.
• Allowing an employer and union to agree to alter employment standards rules such as hours of work, notice of work times, days of rest, and overtime hours under hours of work averaging arrangements.

More flexible rules for group terminations, length of temporary layoffs, and variances and exemptions took effect earlier this year.

Resources for employers

Fact sheets are available online to help employers understand the new rules. You can also contact Alberta Employment Standards with questions about these rules.

Alberta Employment Standards offers free online webinars that provide details on current employment standards rules. Webinars on the new rules will be available at a later date.