All Employees Must Receive the New Employment Standards Poster
All employees in Ontario who are covered by the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (the “ESA”) must receive a copy of the one-page Ministry of Labour poster entitled “Employment Standards in Ontario” from their employer within 30 days of hire. In addition, employers are required to post the same Employment Standards poster iin a location where employees are likely to see it – e.g., in the lunchroom, mail room, etc. The poster must be displayed in English. If the majority language of a workplace is a language other than English, and the Ministry of Labour has published a version of the poster in that language, a copy of the translation must be posted next to the English version of the poster.
The Employment Standards poster is meant to help employers and employees understand their rights and obligations under the ESA, such as minimum wage, hours of work, and leaves of absences, in an easy-to-read way.
Several versions of the Employment Standards poster have been created over the years to keep up with the changing employment laws in Ontario.
Version 6.0 of the Employment Standards poster became out of date when several provisions of the ESA changed on January 1, 2018. Accordingly, the Ministry of Labour recently created version 7.0 of the Employment Standards poster to reflect the new laws. Accordingly, all employers are required to immediately replace version 6.0 of the Employment Standards poster with version 7.0, and provide all employees with the version 7.0 poster. All earlier versions of the Employment Standards poster must be removed from the workplace and replaced with version 7.0.
Employers can give employees the Employment Standards poster in hard copy or electronically, in black and white or in colour.
Give your employees version 7.0 of the Employment Standards poster as soon as possible, and ensure that a copy is posted in a conspicuous location in the workplace!