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| Olivia Cicchini |
At a recent webinar we held for the Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA) as their founding partner, I spoke at length about current legal trends and changes affecting HR professionals and employers. On polling our 500-plus audience, we learned 36.3 per cent of HR professionals considered managing remote/hybrid work compliance to be the biggest challenge for their organization in 2026. This was followed by employee well-being initiatives (31.3 per cent), updating termination clauses (18.4 per cent) and AI disclosure in recruitment (14 per cent).
In this article, I’ll be discussing these key HR trends and their legal impact.
Employee well-being
This has emerged as a major focus for HR across Canada, especially since the pandemic. Rising mental health claims, employee
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Recent legal changes in Ontario that reflect this shift include:
- Two new job-protected leaves under Bill 229, Working for Workers Six Act, 2024
- Placement of child leave (16-week unpaid parental leave for adoption or surrogacy; not in effect yet)
- A new long-term illness leave (27-week unpaid leave for a serious medical condition)
- O. Reg 477/24 that requires written employment statements for staff (applicable to employers with 25 or more employees) to provide clarity and transparency on key job terms at the outset
- O. Reg 480/24 that requires employers to ensure clean washroom facilities on worksite and maintain cleaning records
- Elimination of sick notes for statutorily protected short-term sick leaves under Bill 190, Working for Workers Five Act, 2024
Remote and hybrid work
What began as a temporary pandemic fix has become a lasting model, driven by employee demand for flexibility, talent competition and new tech that makes virtual work seamless.
There are many benefits to remote/hybrid work for employers — wider talent pools, cost savings, improved retention. But it comes with challenges, such as tracking hours, ensuring health and safety at home, privacy concerns around remote monitoring and managing fairness in hybrid teams.
HR professionals now need to balance flexibility with compliance and culture.
Recent legal changes in Ontario that reflect this shift include:
Bill 190, Working for Workers Five Act, 2024 that has:
- Extended application of OHSA requirements to private residences
- Expanded definitions to cover virtual harassment
- Electronic posting of required OHS information
- Virtual Joint Health & Safety Committee meetings
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is fast becoming a powerful tool in Ontario’s HR and employment law landscape. AI has emerged as a trend in recent years due to:
- Efficiency and cost savings
- Better data analysis
- Consistency and objectivity
While AI provides strong operational benefits, it also comes with new risks (bias, hallucinations, potential privacy violations) that HR professionals must tackle carefully.
Recent legal changes in Ontario that reflect this shift include:
Bill 149, Working for Workers Four Act, 2024
Rolls in new job posting requirements from Jan. 1, 2026. One such new requirement is disclosure of use of artificial intelligence (AI) in screening, assessing or selecting applicants.
Invalid termination clauses
Over the past few years, Ontario courts have adopted an increasingly strict and employee-focused approach to termination clauses. This has led to more reasons for these provisions to be struck down.
This trend has become a defining feature of Ontario employment law and presents a real issue for employers and HR professionals.
This trend was initiated by the “Waksdale effect” in 2019. This case made employers realize that all language of termination clauses must comply with the Employment Standards Act (ESA) or else they risk losing the benefit of the termination clause entirely (Waksdale v. Swegon North America Inc., [2020] O.J. No. 2703).
For instance, in Dufault v. Ignace (Township), 2024 ONSC 1029, the court upheld the plaintiff’s claim for wrongful dismissal on the basis that the language of the termination clause permitted the employer to terminate the employment at its sole discretion. Language such as “at its sole discretion” when combined with “at any time” goes against the ESA, as an employee cannot be terminated during a job-protected leave or for exercising their rights under the ESA.
An employment termination clause in Ontario that violates the ESA could be found unenforceable by an Ontario court. If that happens, the employer would be owing reasonable notice of termination, which is substantially heftier than ESA notice of termination.
To protect your business from costly, time-consuming litigation, it is critical that employers have their employment contracts (i.e., termination provisions) regularly updated and reviewed.
Olivia Cicchini is an employment relations expert at Peninsula Canada, an HR consulting firm.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
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