The Written Policies an Ontario Employer Is Required to Have

Most owner-managed businesses in Ontario have no employee handbook and assume that is a stylistic choice. It is not. Several written policies are legally required, they come from three different statutes with three different headcount thresholds, and at least one of them has a March deadline that arrives every single year.

None of this is discretionary once you cross the relevant threshold, and none of it is expensive to fix. It just has to be done on purpose.

The list, with the threshold that switches it on

The two ESA policies with the recurring deadline

The disconnecting from work policy and the electronic monitoring policy work the same way. Count the employees you employ in Ontario on 1 January. If the count is 25 or more, you must have the written policy in place before 1 March of that year and provide a copy to all employees.

The count is individuals, not full-time equivalents. A part-time student who works six hours a week counts as one employee, exactly like your operations manager. Multiple locations are added together, so three shops with twelve people each is thirty-six employees and both policies are required even though no single location comes close. Employees in other provinces do not count toward the Ontario threshold, and they carry their own obligations instead, which is the subject of opening in another province.

Read what each policy actually has to do, because owners routinely over-promise. The disconnecting policy does not create a new right to be unreachable, and the electronic monitoring policy does not create a right not to be monitored. The monitoring policy has to state whether you monitor, and if you do, describe how and in what circumstances, the purposes the information may be used for, and carry the date it was prepared and the date of any change. Transparency is the obligation. A policy that promises employees more than the statute requires is a promise you now have to keep.

The health and safety policies nobody remembers until an inspector arrives

Every Ontario employer must prepare a policy on workplace violence and a policy on workplace harassment under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, review both at least annually, and maintain programs to implement them. The policies must be in written form and posted conspicuously in the workplace or kept in a readily accessible electronic format, unless five or fewer workers are regularly employed there.

Separately, the Act requires a written occupational health and safety policy reviewed at least annually with a program to implement it, and that requirement also does not apply where five or fewer workers are regularly employed. Two statements matter here. “At least annually” means the review is a recurring task, not a one-time drafting exercise. And a policy without the program behind it is half the obligation.

If you have employees at all, you almost certainly also have a WSIB question, which is covered in workers’ compensation in Ontario.

Accessibility, which is where the filing obligation hides

The AODA requires every business with employees in Ontario to create accessibility policies and to train staff and volunteers on the Ontario Human Rights Code, accessible customer service, and the requirements that apply to their duties.

The obligations step up with size, as set out in the province’s accessibility rules for businesses and non-profits. At 20 or more employees you must file an accessibility compliance report every three years. At 50 or more you must document your accessibility policies, notify the public that they exist, and create, post and maintain a multi-year accessibility plan reviewed at least once every five years. Organisations with 50 or more must also keep a written record of accessibility training, including how many people were trained and when.

The compliance report is the item that catches people. It is a filing, it has a date, and nobody sends you an invoice to remind you.

Hiring paperwork changed recently

Two ESA requirements are newer than most handbooks.

Since 1 July 2025, employers with 25 or more employees on a new hire’s first day must give that employee specified written information about the job before the first day of work, or as soon after as is reasonably possible. The employment standards poster must go to every employee within 30 days of hire, and where an employee needs it in another language you must provide that version in addition to the English one.

For postings made on or after 1 January 2026, employers with 25 or more employees must include expected compensation or a compensation range in a publicly advertised job posting, disclose any use of artificial intelligence to screen or select applicants, and state whether a vacancy exists. Requirements for Canadian experience are prohibited in the posting and in the application form, and interviewed applicants must be told whether a hiring decision was made. The detail is on the ministry’s page for publicly advertised job postings. A range you are obliged to publish is a range you should have set deliberately, which is the work in designing pay.

And if the person you hire is coming from outside Canada, a further set of employer obligations attaches on top of all of this, set out in hiring from outside Canada.

Build it as a calendar, not a binder

The reason handbooks go stale is that they are treated as documents rather than as recurring obligations. Put four entries in the compliance calendar you already keep for filings:

Every January, count Ontario employees on the first of the month and confirm whether the 25-employee ESA policies apply this year. Every February, refresh and reissue those policies before 1 March. Once a year, review the violence, harassment and health and safety policies. Every three years, file the AODA compliance report.

Keep the signed acknowledgements. ESA record keeping rules require records to be retained after they cease to be in effect, and the same discipline is what makes a performance file defensible later. The rest of the hiring setup is in hiring your first employee, and the exit paperwork in the record of employment. Tipped workplaces have a further posting obligation covered in tips and payroll.

Send me your headcount as at 1 January, your locations and what you currently have in writing. I will tell you which of these apply to you this year and what is missing, and where the answer needs an employment lawyer rather than an accountant I will say so. Get in touch.