Recent decisions from the Alberta Employment Standards Appeal Body give new guidance on minimum standards, overtime pay, record-keeping and resignations.
Alberta’s Employment Standards Code (the Code) and its regulations set out minimum employment standards for most employees in Alberta. These include rules about hours of work, overtime pay, vacations, general holidays, and job-protected leaves.
Employees who believe their employers have violated the Code can file complaints with Alberta Employment Standards. An employee can file a complaint while they are still working or within six months after their employment ends.
Employment Standards encourages employers and employees to try to resolve complaints by agreement. If the parties cannot come to an agreement, an employment standards officer may investigate. The officer may then issue an order requiring the employer to pay amounts owing to the employee.
A party who disagrees with an officer’s order can appeal it to the Alberta Labour Relations Board, which acts as the Employment Standards Appeal Body (Appeal Body).
Three recent appeal decisions show how Alberta’s employment standards laws apply to corporate directors, employees claiming overtime pay, and employers who fail to maintain adequate employment records.
When is a corporate director personally liable for unpaid wages?
In Page v Director of Employment Standards, the Appeal Body considered whether a former corporate director was personally liable for unpaid employee wages.
Under section 112 of the Code,corporate directors may be held personally liable for unpaid wages earned by their corporation’s employees for a period not exceeding six months. However, a person is not liable for unpaid wages earned when they were not a director.
Employment Standards issued a certificate declaring Douglas Page personally liable for wages owed to an employee by two related corporations. Mr. Page appealed, arguing that he had resigned as a director before the employee started working.
Although Mr. Page had been removed as a director of one corporation in British Columbia’s corporate registry, he remained listed as a director of the other corporation in Alberta’s corporate registry.
The Appeal Body found that the registry information was not definite evidence that Mr. Page remained a director. Under Alberta’s Business Corporations Act, a director’s resignation becomes effective when the director communicates it to the corporation in accordance with the Act.
Mr. Page verbally resigned as a director of the corporations on February 26, 2024. Two days later, he emailed the corporations’ lawyer, confirming his resignation and asking to have his name removed from the relevant corporate registries.
The Appeal Body concluded that, in the circumstances, this email communicated Mr. Page’s resignation from both corporations. His resignation was effective February 28, 2024, before the employee began working for the corporations in April.
As a result, Mr. Page was not personally liable for the employee’s unpaid wages, and the Appeal Body revoked the certificate.
This decision highlights the importance of documenting a corporate director’s resignation. Directors should communicate their resignation in writing, identify all corporations involved, and follow up to make sure corporate records are updated. These steps can help prevent disputes about their personal liability for unpaid employee wages.
Who has the right to overtime pay?
In 1701104 Alberta Ltd. v Singh, the Appeal Body considered whether an employee was exempt from overtime pay because he was employed in a managerial or supervisory role.
Jatinder Singh worked at a recreational vehicle park and campground (the Park). After his employment ended, he filed an employment standards complaint seeking unpaid wages, overtime pay, vacation pay, and general holiday pay.
An employment standards officer issued an order, finding that Mr. Singh’s former employer owed him more than $22,000 in overtime pay, along with other amounts.
The employer appealed, arguing that Mr. Singh was employed in a managerial or supervisory role and was therefore exempt from overtime pay. Alternatively, the employer argued that Mr. Singh had worked no overtime hours.
Under section 2(1) of Alberta’s Employment Standards Regulation, employees employed in a managerial or supervisory capacity, whose duties are not similar to those performed by employees who are not managers or supervisors, are exempt from provisions of the Code relating to hours of work, overtime hours, and overtime pay.
The Appeal Body explained that job titles do not determine whether this exemption applies to an employee. Instead, the employee’s actual duties and responsibilities must be examined. Because the exemption limits an employee’s minimum employment standards protections, it must be interpreted narrowly.
Although Mr. Singh was often called the “Park Manager” or “Park Supervisor,” his main responsibilities included janitorial work, grounds maintenance, and some administrative tasks.
The Appeal Body found that the corporation’s owner controlled the Park’s operations and major business decisions. There was also not enough evidence that Mr. Singh had any significant supervisory duties.
Therefore, the Appeal Body concluded that Mr. Singh was not employed in a managerial or supervisory role and was not exempt from the Code’s overtime provisions.
However, that did not mean the employer owed Mr. Singh overtime pay.
Mr. Singh claimed that he worked 12 hours per day, seven days per week, but he did not keep records of the hours he worked. His employer had also failed to keep accurate records of his working hours, contrary to section 14 of the Code.
The Appeal Body stressed that employers who fail to keep the required employment records do so at their own peril. Still, the Appeal Body found that Mr. Singh had not provided convincing evidence that he worked the overtime hours he claimed.
Much of Mr. Singh’s claim seemed to relate to time when he was available to work or on call, rather than performing work. The Appeal Body noted that being on call does not usually count as work under the Code.
The Appeal Body concluded that Mr. Singh had not shown that he worked any overtime hours. It allowed the employer’s appeal regarding overtime pay, and directed Employment Standards to revise the order to account for that.
This decision illustrates two important points. First, an employee’s job title alone does not determine whether they are employed in a managerial or supervisory role. Their actual duties, responsibilities, and authority must be considered. Second, even when employers fail to keep accurate records of hours worked, employees claiming unpaid overtime must still provide convincing evidence to support their claims.
Why are accurate employment records important?
In Toscana Italian Grill on Mahogany Ltd. operating as Toscana Italian Grill v Hoxha, an employment standards officer found that an employer owed unpaid wages to a former employee. The Appeal Body considered whether the employer had already paid these amounts.
Bledar Hoxha worked as a sous-chef at Toscana Italian Grill, earning $19 per hour. He regularly worked more than eight hours per day but the restaurant paid him for 88 hours per pay period. The restaurant treated the extra hours he worked as banked hours.
After resigning, Mr. Hoxha asked for payment of his banked hours. The restaurant paid him $3,490 in cash but did not provide documentation explaining how it calculated the payment or which hours the payment covered.
Mr. Hoxha believed the restaurant owed him more and filed an employment standards complaint.
After an investigation, an employment standards officer ordered the restaurant to pay Mr. Hoxha $5,480.53 in unpaid overtime pay, vacation pay, and general holiday pay.
The restaurant appealed, arguing that it had already paid the amounts owing.
The Appeal Body considered the parties’ conflicting testimony, payroll documents, and evidence of payments made to Mr. Hoxha.
It rejected the restaurant’s claim that it had made an additional $1,236 payment to Mr. Hoxha in April 2025, finding insufficient evidence to support this.
Although both parties agreed that Mr. Hoxha received the $3,490 cash payment in May 2025, no reliable evidence established which period of employment that payment covered.
This was significant because the employment standards officer had assessed unpaid overtime for a limited period. The Appeal Body noted that Mr. Hoxha had also accumulated banked hours before that period and could still be entitled to payment for those hours.
The restaurant therefore had to show that the cash payment related to amounts included in the officer’s order. It failed to do so.
The Appeal Body dismissed the appeal and confirmed the order requiring the restaurant to pay $5,480.53.
The decision demonstrates the importance of keeping complete and accurate employment records. Employers should document employees’ working hours, payments made, and the periods and entitlements to which those payments relate. Without reliable records, employers may find it difficult to show that they have fulfilled their obligations under the Code.
Takeaways for employers and employees
These decisions demonstrate that employment standards disputes often turn on more than the rights and obligations set out in legislation. The evidence available to establish whether an employer has respected those rights and obligations can be equally important.
For employers, the decisions reinforce the importance of understanding and meeting employment standards requirements, keeping accurate records, and properly documenting significant events, such as payments to employees and corporate directors’ resignations.
For employees, the decisions highlight the importance of understanding their minimum employment standards entitlements and keeping their own records of working hours, compensation, and communications with employers.
Understanding employment standards rights and obligations, and keeping reliable documentation, can help employers and employees avoid disputes or resolve them more effectively.
To learn more about the Code’s requirements and how to make an employment standards complaint, visit the Alberta Employment Standards website.
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DISCLAIMER The information in this article was correct at time of publishing. The law may have changed since then. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of LawNow or the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta.
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