When one employee has more work than others that has to be done during event
Question: If an employer organizes a team-building event for a particular department during normal business hours but one or two of the employees are unable to attend due to the amount of work they have, could the employer have any liability regarding discrimination or overtime?
Answer: Human rights legislation protects employees from discrimination in their employment on the basis of prescribed grounds under the legislation, which are generally called “prohibited grounds” of discrimination. In most provinces, those grounds include: religion, creed, marital status, family status, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, colour, ancestry, nationality, place of origin, race, receipt of public assistance and gender identity. As such, unless a particular employee is being assigned extra work so as to prevent him from attending the team building event because of a prohibited ground of discrimination (for example, the employee is assigned extra work because of his race or age), then the assignment of work which prevents attendance at a team-building event will not be discriminatory. There is no ground of discrimination relating to the amount of a work a person takes on in his job capacity. In other words, an employee can't claim protection from discrimination under human rights legislation on the grounds that he has too much work.
With respect to a claim for overtime, overtime is only accrued when an employee works above the maximum legislated hours of work proscribed by employment standards legislation. In most provinces in Canada, the maximum hours of work before overtime is triggered is 40 hours per week or eight to 10 hours per day (depending on the province). If an employee does not attend the team building event and instead works on another project during normal business hours, and does not work in excess of regular daily or weekly hours, no overtime will be triggered. However, if an employee works more than the maximum number of daily or weekly hours — for example, attends the team-building and then works late to finish his work – overtime can become payable. To avoid overtime liability, employers should ensure that employees are expressly advised that they may not work overtime without express written permission to do so, as overtime is otherwise generally payable in circumstances when an employee works overtime of his own volition without checking with the employer first.
