Headcount is the first thing to know when working out which policies your business needs. Ontario does not hand employers one tidy list. The requirements are spread across several statutes, and each uses its own threshold. A Brampton bakery with four staff, a roofing crew with fifteen seasonal workers, and a logistics company with sixty people on the payroll all have different obligations, and those obligations can change the week you hire one more person.
The other thing to know is that a policy on file does not finish the job. Many of these laws require you to post the policy, review it on a schedule, give copies to staff, or train people on it. Inspectors and courts tend to ask what you actually did, so a binder nobody has opened offers little comfort.
Please treat this as general information and not as legal advice. The rules below are stated at a summary level, and special requirements exist for particular sectors, so confirm how they apply to your workplace.
From Your First Worker: Violence and Harassment
The Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) applies to most Ontario workplaces. Under section 32.0.1, an employer must prepare a policy on workplace violence and a policy on workplace harassment, and must review them as often as necessary, and at least once a year.
These policies must be in writing and posted at a conspicuous place in the workplace, or made available in a readily accessible electronic format. The one small-business concession concerns workplaces where five or fewer workers are regularly employed: the written-and-posted requirement does not apply there unless an inspector orders it. The duty to have the policies, and to deal with violence and harassment, remains.
A policy is not enough on its own. The OHSA also requires a program to implement each policy. In practical terms, the harassment program must explain:
- how a worker reports an incident, including to someone other than the employer or supervisor if that person is the alleged harasser
- how incidents will be investigated and dealt with
- how information will be kept confidential, unless disclosure is necessary for the investigation or required by law
- how the complainant and alleged harasser will be told the results of the investigation and any corrective action
For violence, you also need to assess the risks in your workplace, taking account of the nature of the work and the conditions, and put in place measures to control them, along with a way to summon immediate help. A late-night convenience store on Queen Street and a daytime accounting office have very different risk assessments. Copying someone else’s will not reflect your workplace. The Act also speaks directly to domestic violence that may expose a worker to physical injury at work, which an employer must take reasonable precautions to address if it knows or ought reasonably to know about it.
The OHSA definitions of workplace harassment and workplace sexual harassment expressly cover conduct that happens virtually, including through information and communications technology. If your policy still reads as though harassment only occurs in the break room, update it to address group chats, video calls, and messaging tools.
More Than Five Workers: The Health and Safety Policy
Where more than five workers are regularly employed at a workplace, clause 25(2)(j) of the OHSA requires the employer to prepare, and review at least annually, a written occupational health and safety policy, and to develop and maintain a program to implement it. It must be posted in a conspicuous place or in a readily accessible electronic format.
This document is usually short. It should state management’s commitment to worker safety, the responsibilities of the employer, supervisors, and workers, and be signed and dated by a senior person. The real substance is in the program behind it: hazard reporting, inspections, training, and incident response.
A few related items often get missed when headcount rises:
- Representatives and committees. A workplace regularly employing more than five but fewer than 20 workers generally needs a health and safety representative. A joint health and safety committee is generally required at 20 or more. Those numbers have sector-specific variations.
- Posters. Employers must post the prescribed health and safety poster and a copy of the Act, and the Ministry’s employment standards poster or an equivalent must be provided. WSIB-covered employers have their own posting duty.
- Awareness training. Workers and supervisors must complete basic health and safety awareness training, regardless of size.
Accessibility: Everyone, With More at 20 and 50
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA) and its Integrated Accessibility Standards apply to every organization in Ontario with at least one employee. Ontario’s guidance says an organization must create accessibility policies and keep them up to date. Those with fewer than 50 employees are not required to document them, though many should anyway. If a customer or inspector asks how you deal with accessibility, a written document is a much better answer than a recollection.
Those policies are expected to address how you serve people with disabilities, including service animals, support persons, notice of service disruptions, and feedback. Staff training on the accessibility standards and on the Human Rights Code as it relates to disability is required regardless of size.
The next threshold is 20 employees, when an organization must file an accessibility compliance report through the Ontario government, on a three-year cycle. At 50 employees, requirements expand. You must document your policies, create a multi-year accessibility plan, post it on your website if you have one, and review it at least every five years.
A note on counting: the AODA generally looks at employees, including part-time and seasonal staff, and a business that hovers near a threshold should confirm the count rather than assuming.
At 25 Employees: Disconnecting and Electronic Monitoring
Two written policies under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) are triggered at the same number, and both are tested once a year.
Disconnecting from work. Under Part VII.0.1, an employer with 25 or more employees on January 1 of a year must have a written policy on disconnecting from work in place by March 1 of that year. “Disconnecting” means not engaging in work-related communications, including email, telephone calls, video calls, or other messages, so that a person is free from performing work. The legislation does not specify a required standard or create a new right to be left alone after hours. It requires a policy that says something, and the policy must be dated and state when any changes were made.
Electronic monitoring. Under Part XI.1, the same January 1 count and March 1 deadline apply. The policy must state whether the employer monitors employees electronically. If it does, the policy must describe how and in what circumstances, and the purposes for which the information may be used. Think of GPS on delivery vehicles, dashcams on trucks, keystroke tools, door swipes, and security cameras in the warehouse. If your Brampton fleet is using telematics, that belongs in the policy, and the policy needs updating if you add something later.
For both policies, the employer must give a copy to existing employees within 30 days of it being implemented or changed, and to new hires within 30 days of their start date. A copy of the monitoring policy must also be kept for three years after it ceases to be in effect. This does not stop you from using monitored information for other purposes, and it is not a privacy consent. It is a transparency requirement, and it sits on top of other legal limits, such as those explained in a privacy review.
Keep your count honest. Only employees are counted for the ESA threshold, but all of them count, including part-timers, probationary staff, and those on leave. Employees of related businesses may also be treated as one employer in some situations, so a group of companies under common ownership in Peel should not assume each company counts separately.
Hiring Rules That Work Like Policies
Employers with 25 or more employees also have obligations about publicly advertised job postings. Since January 1, 2026, those postings must include the expected compensation or range where the top of the range is not above $200,000, must disclose whether artificial intelligence is used to screen, assess, or select applicants, and must state whether the posting is for an existing vacancy. Applicants who were interviewed must be told within 45 days whether a decision has been made. Canadian experience generally cannot be listed as a requirement in a public posting, which matters in a city like Brampton with a large newcomer workforce. Ontario also requires employers of that size to give new hires certain written information about the job, generally before their first day of work or, if that is not reasonably possible, as soon as it is.
These are not policies in the formal sense, but a short internal procedure is the practical way to comply. If a hiring manager is posting roles on job boards without anyone checking these items, you have a gap.
Policies You Probably Want Even Though No One Requires Them
The statutes set a minimum. These optional documents can matter just as much in a dispute:
- attendance, leave, and overtime approval procedures (overtime disputes are often proof problems)
- accommodation procedures under the Human Rights Code, which applies to all employers
- use of company vehicles, phones, and other equipment, including personal use
- drug and alcohol expectations, especially for drivers or those in safety-sensitive roles, drafted with human rights obligations in mind
- use of artificial intelligence tools and handling of client information
- social media and confidentiality
- expense claims and gift rules
Be careful what you write. An optional policy can become a contractual promise if your documents incorporate it, and an employer that ignores its own progressive discipline policy may have trouble relying on it later. Add a term to your employment contracts that lets you update policies, and give notice of changes.
Making Policies Work in Real Life
Ontario inspectors and adjudicators tend to look for evidence. Build a simple system to generate it.
Set one date each year, perhaps the first week of January, for your annual review of the violence, harassment, and health and safety policies. That timing also lines up with the January 1 headcount for the two ESA policies. Record who reviewed each document and what changed, even if the answer is “no change”.
Keep a signed acknowledgment or an electronic record for each employee showing they received each policy and any training. Translate key information if a good portion of your workforce reads another language more comfortably. A policy nobody can read is hard to defend, and in a multilingual Brampton workplace this is a real issue.
Make reporting possible. If the only person a warehouse worker can complain to about harassment is the owner’s brother, the program may not meet the requirement for an alternate reporting person.
Follow through. An investigation that never happens is often worse than a policy with imperfect wording.
Where to Go From Here
Start by writing down your current headcount, how it may change in the next twelve months, and every policy you can actually find. Compare that to the thresholds above. Small gaps are usually simple to close, and larger ones are easier to deal with before a complaint or inspection than after.
If you would like your package reviewed, our corporate law group can look at how your policies fit with your employment agreements and your day-to-day operations, or you can reach out to arrange a conversation.