Casual Legal: Averaging work hours
DISCLAIMER: This article is meant to provide information to Alberta Municipalities members only and is not intended to provide legal advice. You should seek the advice of legal counsel to address your specific set of circumstances. Although every effort has been made to provide current and accurate information, changes to the law may cause the information in this article to be outdated. This content is not intended for the general public.
By Maddison Croden
Reynolds Mirth Richards Farmer LLP
Alberta Municipalities Casual Legal Service Provider
The averaging arrangement provisions of the Employment Standards Code can allow employers and employees to bend the clock without breaking the rules, offering a way to average hours while staying in synch with wage and overtime rules.
An employer may require or permit an employee to work pursuant to an “averaging arrangement". Such an arrangement allows an employer to average an employee’s hours of work over a period of one to 52 weeks for the purpose of determining an employee’s entitlement to overtime pay or, instead of overtime pay, time off with pay. What this means is that instead of looking to a single day, or even week, to determine when overtime is owing to an employee, employers are permitted to look to the entire averaging period for the purposes of determining overtime.
To put an averaging arrangement in place, an employer must give at least two weeks’ written notice of the requirement to work the averaging arrangement unless otherwise agreed to by the employee and employer. Further, the averaging arrangement must be in writing, must specify the number of weeks over which hours will be averaged, include a schedule setting out the daily and weekly hours of work for the averaging period, and specify the manner in which overtime pay and time off with pay instead of overtime pay will be calculated.
When specifying how overtime pay will be calculated, employers must use a method of calculation that is consistent with one of several options set out in the Employment Standards Regulations. When properly drafted, an averaging arrangement can be a helpful tool to manage overtime, particularly for employees with non-traditional hours of work.
To access Alberta Municipalities Casual Legal Helpline, Alberta Municipalities members can call toll-free to 1-800-661-7673 or casuallegal [at] abmunis.ca (email) to reach the municipal legal experts at Reynolds Mirth Richards and Farmer LLP. For more information on the Casual Legal Service, please call 310-MUNI (6864) or riskcontrol [at] abmunis.ca (email) to connect with Alberta Municipalities Risk Management staff. Any Regular or Associate member of Alberta Municipalities can access the Casual Legal Service.
