Executive chef who filled in on non-managerial duties gets overtime under little-used provision
In Ontario, an employer’s statutory obligation to pay for overtime is triggered when an employee works more than 44 hours in a week. The right to overtime pay applies to all employees except those whose “work is supervisory or managerial in character and who may perform non-supervisory or non-managerial tasks on an irregular or exceptional basis,” according to employment standards legislation. The overtime exemption for managers may be applicable even if an employee is not exclusively performing managerial or supervisory work. However, section 22(9) of the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA), does allow overtime to be paid to managerial employees who find themselves in a situation where they spend 50 per cent or more of their time during a work week performing non-managerial tasks, but this provision hasn’t come into play until just recently.
