What you need to know about Ontario's Right to Disconnect Policy

Employers that employ 25 or more employees must adopt a written policy on disconnecting from work. They are also required to provide a copy of the written policy to all employees. These requirements were added to the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) on December 2, 2021. Employers that employ 25 or more employees on January 1, 2022, have until June 2, 2022, to adopt this policy.

The written policy on disconnecting from work must include the following:

-A statement that employees have the right to disconnect from work outside of their scheduled hours;

-An definition of what is considered "disconnecting from work";

-Information on how employees can exercise their right to disconnect; and

-Consequences for employees who do not comply with the policy.

The policy must be readily available to all employees, and must be posted in a conspicuous place where it can be easily seen and accessed by employees. Employers are also required to provide a copy of the written policy to all employees.

If an employer does not have a written policy on disconnecting from work, they will be in violation of the ESA. Employers that violate the ESA can be subject to fines of up to $5,000 for a first offence, and up to $15,000 for each subsequent offence.

When creating the policy, employers who are subject to the requirement must ensure that the policy (1) is about disconnecting from work, as defined in the ESA, (2) includes the date it was prepared and (3), if applicable, the date any changes were made to the policy. Other than these requirements, the ESA does not specify the information the employer must include in the policy, nor does it specify that the policy must be a particular length. The employer determines the content of the policy itself.

Employers should also ensure that the policy applies to all of the employees in Ontario. This includes management, executives and shareholders if they are employees under the ESA. The employer would not comply with the ESA requirements if its policy only applied to some of its employees (for example, if the policy applied only to the employer’s sales staff but not its managerial staff). This doesn’t mean that the employer is required to have the same policy for all its employees: an employer can have a single policy that applies to all employees, or its policy can contain different policies for different groups of employees.

The policy may be a stand-alone document, or it may be part of another document (for example, a comprehensive workplace human resource policies and procedures manual). It must be in place within the specified timeframe (for 2022, the policy must be in place by June 2, 2022. For all other years, the policy must be in place by March 1 of that year). Employers should retain a copy of every written policy required by the ESA for three years after the policy is no longer in effect.

Have you adopted a Right to Disconnect Policy? If not, reach out to our team of legal professionals to provide assistance. If you reach out quickly enough, meeting the proposed deadline should be a non-issue. Contact us at (613) 505-5025 or e-mail info@wvglaw.com to get more information.