Resources
HR terms, defined the way they're actually used.
Not simplified past the point of being useful. These are the terms that show up in policies, contracts, and employment standards legislation — explained in plain English, without losing what makes each one legally meaningful.
General explanations, not legal advice. Specific thresholds — notice periods, accrual rates, committee requirements — vary by province and territory and change over time. Confirm current specifics for your jurisdiction, or ask us directly.
- Bona Fide Occupational Requirement(BFOR)
- A qualification, standard, or requirement that is reasonably necessary to safely and efficiently perform the essential duties of a specific job. A genuine BFOR allows an employer to justify a policy or practice that would otherwise be discriminatory under human rights legislation — but the bar is high, and the requirement must be connected to the job itself, not assumptions about who can do it.
- Collective Agreement
- A legally binding contract between an employer and a union, negotiated through collective bargaining, that sets out the wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions for the employees it covers. It generally displaces individual negotiation for unionized employees on matters the agreement addresses.
- Constructive Dismissal
- A situation where an employer unilaterally makes a fundamental change to a core term of employment — pay, duties, reporting relationship, or location, among others — without the employee's consent. The employee can treat this as an effective termination and pursue the same remedies as if they had been dismissed outright, even though they were never formally let go.
- Duty to Accommodate
- An employer's legal obligation, under human rights legislation, to adjust workplace policies, practices, or physical requirements for an employee with a protected characteristic — such as disability, religion, or family status — up to the point of undue hardship. It's an active obligation to explore solutions, not just a defence against complaints.
- Employment Standards Act(ESA)
- Provincial or territorial legislation (the federal equivalent is the Canada Labour Code) that sets the legal floor employers must meet for wages, hours of work, overtime, vacation, statutory holidays, leaves of absence, and termination. Employers can offer better than the minimums in an employment contract or policy, but a term that offers less is generally unenforceable.
- Frustration of Contract
- The legal end of an employment relationship caused by an unforeseeable event, beyond either party's control, that makes performing the original employment contract impossible — most commonly a permanent or indefinite medical incapacity. Where it genuinely applies, it can end the employment without the usual notice obligations, though the threshold to prove it is high.
- Human Rights Code
- Provincial, territorial, or federal legislation prohibiting discrimination and harassment in employment — and in other areas of public life — on the basis of protected grounds such as race, sex, age, disability, family status, and religion. It applies across the full employment relationship, from job postings through to termination.
- Independent Contractor
- A self-employed individual or business engaged under a contract for services rather than a contract of employment. Contractors are generally responsible for their own taxes and are not covered by the employment standards protections that apply to employees — but the label on the contract doesn't decide the classification; the actual working relationship does.
- Joint Health and Safety Committee(JHSC)
- A committee of worker and employer representatives, required under occupational health and safety legislation once a workplace reaches a minimum employee count, responsible for identifying workplace hazards, recommending improvements, and helping investigate incidents and complaints.
- Just Cause
- A legal standard requiring an employer to prove an employee's conduct was serious enough to justify immediate dismissal without notice or severance — for example theft, fraud, or serious insubordination — because it fundamentally broke the trust the employment relationship depends on. It's a high bar, assessed on the specific facts, not a label an employer can apply to any dismissal it would rather not pay for.
- Layoff, Temporary
- An employer-initiated, unpaid suspension of work for a definite or indefinite period. If a temporary layoff runs longer than what employment standards legislation permits, it can be deemed a termination of employment — triggering notice and severance obligations even though the employer never formally used the word.
- Notice of Termination
- The advance warning an employer must give an employee before ending their employment without cause — either as working notice or pay in lieu of it. Employment standards legislation sets the statutory minimum; common law (see Reasonable Notice) frequently requires more.
- Occupational Health and Safety(OHS)
- The body of legislation, regulation, and workplace practice aimed at preventing injury and illness at work. It sets out employer duties (such as providing a safe workplace and proper training), worker rights (such as the right to refuse unsafe work), and enforcement mechanisms.
- Probationary Period
- An initial period of employment during which an employer may assess a new employee's suitability for the role. Employment standards legislation typically allows termination during this window without full notice, though minimum notice may still apply once a short qualifying period has passed — probation is not an exemption from all employment obligations.
- Progressive Discipline
- A structured, staged approach to correcting employee performance or conduct issues — typically moving from a verbal warning, to a written warning, to a final warning, before termination — intended to give an employee clear notice of the concern and a fair opportunity to improve before the relationship ends.
- Reasonable Notice
- The amount of notice, or pay in lieu, that common law requires an employer to provide an employee dismissed without cause — calculated using factors including the employee's age, length of service, position, and how readily they could find similar employment. It is frequently well beyond the statutory minimum in the Employment Standards Act, which is why relying on the statutory number alone is a common and costly mistake.
- Record of Employment(ROE)
- A federal form employers are required to issue whenever an employee has an interruption of earnings. Service Canada uses it to determine eligibility for, and the amount of, Employment Insurance benefits.
- Severance Pay
- A statutory payment owed, in some jurisdictions and above certain thresholds of employer size and employee tenure, to an employee whose employment is terminated — calculated separately from, and in addition to, termination or notice pay. Not every dismissal triggers a statutory severance obligation; whether it applies depends on jurisdiction, employer size, and length of service.
- Statutory Holiday Pay
- Pay owed to eligible employees for designated public holidays under employment standards legislation. It's typically calculated using a formula based on recent earnings rather than simply paying a flat day's wage, and eligibility can depend on hours worked around the holiday.
- Undue Hardship
- The legal threshold beyond which an employer is not required to further accommodate an employee's protected need. It's assessed using factors such as cost, health and safety risk, and operational impact — and it is deliberately a high bar, meaning inconvenience or minor extra cost on its own rarely meets it.
- Vacation Pay
- Statutory pay owed to employees, calculated as a minimum percentage of gross wages, that accrues alongside the vacation time earned under employment standards legislation. It is separate from, and calculated differently than, an employee's regular hourly or salaried pay.
- WHMIS(Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System)
- Canada's national system for communicating information about hazardous products used, stored, or handled in the workplace, through standardized labelling, safety data sheets, and mandatory worker education and training.
- Wrongful Dismissal
- A civil claim that arises when an employer ends employment without cause and without providing the notice, or pay in lieu, that the employment contract, employment standards legislation, or common law requires. It is a claim about the process and amount of notice, distinct from a human rights or wrongful termination allegation about the reason for dismissal.
- Working Notice
- Notice of termination served while the employee continues actively working through some or all of the notice period, as an alternative to being paid out in a lump sum (pay in lieu of notice). Both satisfy the underlying notice obligation; they differ in whether the employee keeps working.
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