The most defensible approach under Ontario employment standards principles is to distinguish between being on call and actually performing work while on call. Since the purpose of your averaging system is to recognize irregular work and earned time rather than to track every scheduled hour worked by salaried employees, a fixed credit for carrying the on-call phone can reasonably be treated as a recognition benefit that acknowledges the inconvenience and restrictions associated with being available to respond.

Maintaining a fixed weekly on-call credit, such as the current 3.5-hour credit, is generally supportable provided it is clearly characterized as recognition for availability rather than a measure of hours worked. Employees are required to remain reachable, monitor the phone, and be prepared to respond within the required timeframe, even if no calls are ultimately received. This recognizes the burden of being on call without treating the entire on-call period as working time.
However, where employees actually perform work outside their regular schedule while on call, it is advisable to separately track and credit that time in addition to the fixed recognition credit. This better reflects the purpose of the averaging system and avoids situations where an employee who receives no calls receives the same credit as an employee who spends several hours responding to incidents or troubleshooting after hours.

With respect to statutory holidays, there is generally a reasonable basis for providing additional recognition when an employee is required to remain available during a holiday, even if no calls are received. The requirement to stay reachable and potentially interrupt personal or family plans can be viewed as a greater inconvenience than being on call during a regular workweek. As a result, an enhanced recognition credit, such as the current 5.25-hour credit, can be justified as acknowledging that additional burden rather than compensating for hours worked.
Overall, the most defensible model is one that combines a fixed recognition credit for the on-call assignment, an additional recognition credit where a statutory holiday falls within the rotation, and separate tracking of any actual work performed while on call. This clearly distinguishes availability from working time, aligns with the intent of the averaging system, and provides a fair and transparent method for recognizing both the obligation to remain available and any work that is actually performed.

-HRInsider staff

Based on the approach you’ve described, it is helpful to distinguish between the employee’s statutory holiday entitlement under the Employment Standards Act (ESA) and the additional earned-time recognition provided through your averaging system. Assuming eligible employees receive their paid statutory holiday in accordance with the ESA, there would generally be no requirement to provide an additional day off in lieu simply because they were scheduled to be on call, provided they did not actually work on the holiday. The enhanced 0.75-day on-call credit would be an employer-provided recognition benefit acknowledging the added inconvenience of remaining available on a statutory holiday, rather than a statutory entitlement.

For purposes of your averaging model, it would be reasonable to continue entering the employee’s regular 7-hour statutory holiday credit to reflect the paid holiday, regardless of whether they perform additional work that day. If the employee travels for work or performs work on the statutory holiday, those hours could then be tracked separately as irregular or additional work under the averaging system, consistent with how you are accounting for other work performed outside the normal schedule. This approach maintains a clear distinction between the paid statutory holiday itself, which is a separate employment standards entitlement, and the additional work or availability that your averaging system is designed to recognize. As always, if employees actually work on a statutory holiday, you should also ensure the applicable ESA requirements regarding public holiday work—including entitlement to premium pay and/or a substitute holiday where applicable or any exemptions that may apply—are satisfied independently of your internal averaging policy.

Where an employee works on a public holiday and receives regular wages for the hours worked together with a substitute day off with public holiday pay, the hours worked would generally continue to be treated as hours worked for the purposes of an overtime averaging arrangement. If the employee instead receives public holiday pay plus premium pay for the hours worked, those premium-paid hours are excluded from overtime calculations under the ESA.

-HRInsider Staff