BC Employment Contract Template

What a BC employment contract is for

In British Columbia every employee has an employment contract, written or not. Without written terms, the law fills the gaps in ways that are expensive for employers. If you let someone go without cause, you owe them common law reasonable notice, which for an experienced employee can mean many months of pay, not the few weeks in the Employment Standards Act. You cannot put someone on temporary layoff during a slow season without risking a claim that you fired them. And a probation period or a client non-solicitation promise exists only if the employee agreed to it.

This agreement sets those terms in writing. It has the job, place of work, hours and overtime, pay, vacation, benefits and leave, then the clauses that matter most when things go wrong: probation, temporary layoff, a termination clause written to survive a court challenge, confidentiality, ownership of work product and an optional client non-solicitation clause. Four schedules cover the job description, incentive pay, policies received and an ESA notice worksheet for the employer's file.

When to use it

Use it for every new hire in a provincially regulated BC business: office, retail, trades, technology, hospitality and professional services, full-time or part-time, permanent or fixed-term. It is also the document to use when you promote an employee into a materially different role, provided you give something new in return for the new terms, such as the raise that comes with the promotion.

Give it to the employee before their first day. A contract signed after work has started, with nothing new given in exchange, is often unenforceable. Do not use it for unionized staff, federally regulated employers (banks, airlines, telecoms, interprovincial trucking), live-in domestic workers or independent contractors.

What's inside

The full list of sections and fields in this template, in the order they appear.

1. Parties, position and place of work

   • Employer and employee
   • Job title and manager
   • Start date
   • Permanent or fixed term
   • Office remote or hybrid

2. Hours and overtime

   • Normal hours
   • ESA overtime or a stated exclusion
   • Time bank
   • Meal breaks

3. Pay

   • Salary or hourly rate
   • Pay days
   • Posted pay range
   • Annual review
   • Incentive pay
   • No deductions for business costs

4. Vacation, holidays, benefits and leave

   • Vacation weeks and pay
   • 11 statutory holidays
   • Benefit plans
   • 5 paid sick days
   • Job-protected leaves
   • No sick notes for short absences

5. Expenses and equipment

   • Reimbursement
   • Employer equipment

6. Probation and temporary layoff

   • Three-month probation assessed in good faith
   • Layoff up to 13 weeks in 20
   • Benefits during layoff

7. Ending the employment

   • Resignation notice
   • Option A ESA minimum
   • Option B ESA plus
   • Full satisfaction
   • ESA savings clause
   • Just cause
   • Final pay deadlines

8. Confidentiality, intellectual property and non-solicitation

   • Confidential information
   • Protected reports
   • Ownership and moral rights waiver
   • No covenant or client non-solicitation

9. Policies, privacy and general terms

   • Policies
   • PIPA notice and monitoring
   • Entire agreement
   • Changes in position
   • Severability
   • Independent legal advice

10. Signatures

    • Employer and employee

11. Schedules

    • A Position description
    • B Incentive pay plan
    • C Policies received
    • D ESA notice worksheet

12. Employer's Hiring Checklist

    • 12 checks from posting to signed copy

Preview pages

How to complete the agreement

1. Enter the parties and the role. Use the employer's legal name and the employee's full name; fill in the title, manager, start date and whether the job is permanent or fixed-term.
2. Set the place of work. Office, remote or hybrid, with any minimum office days.
3. Choose the overtime option. Keep ESA overtime unless the employee genuinely falls within an exclusion such as a manager whose main job is supervising others.
4. Fill in pay. Salary or hourly rate, pay days, and the pay range from the job posting. Attach Schedule B if there is commission or a bonus.
5. Set vacation, benefits and sick leave. Enter anything above the ESA minimums.
6. Choose the termination option. Option A pays the ESA minimum; Option B pays more, for example 2 weeks a year to a set maximum, and is often easier to defend.
7. Choose the restrictive covenant. None, or a narrow client non-solicitation of 6 or 12 months.
8. Complete the schedules. Write the job description, list the policies the employee receives and keep Schedule D for your file.
9. Deliver it before day one. Run the hiring checklist, remove the checklist, worksheet and grey notes, and give the employee time to read it and take advice before both of you sign.

Example: a termination under Option B

Fictional employer Kestrel Coast Analytics Ltd. of Victoria hires Priya Sandhu as a senior data analyst on April 6, 2020 at $92,000 a year, with Option B: 2 weeks of pay per completed year, to a maximum of 20 weeks, or the ESA amount if greater.

Termination without cause: September 30, 2026. Completed years: 6. ESA section 63: 3 weeks for 3 years plus 3 more weeks = 6 weeks. Option B: 2 weeks × 6 years = 12 weeks. The greater is 12 weeks. Week's wages: $92,000 ÷ 52 = $1,769.23. Pay in place of notice: 12 × $1,769.23 = $21,230.76. Plus: earned salary to September 30, and outstanding vacation pay, paid within 48 hours.

Without a written clause, a court could award a 6-year senior analyst several months of reasonable notice, often considerably more than 12 weeks. The clause gives Priya twice the statutory minimum and gives Kestrel a predictable cost.

British Columbia rules to know

• Compensation for length of service (ESA section 63). 1 week after 3 months, 2 weeks after 12 months, 3 weeks after 3 years plus 1 week per additional year, up to 8; written notice may replace some or all of it.
• Group terminations (section 64). Extra notice when 50 or more employees at one location are terminated within 2 months.
• Temporary layoff (section 62 and the definition of temporary layoff). Up to 13 weeks in 20 consecutive weeks, and only if the contract or industry practice permits it.
• Overtime (section 40). 1.5 times after 8 hours a day or 40 a week; double after 12 hours a day.
• Sick leave (section 49). 5 paid and 3 unpaid days a year after 90 days; no sick notes for short absences since November 12, 2025.
• Vacation (sections 57 and 58). 2 weeks and 4% after 12 months; 3 weeks and 6% after 5 years.
• Final pay (section 18). Within 48 hours if the employer ends the employment; within 6 days if the employee quits.
• Pay Transparency Act. Pay ranges in public job postings, no pay history questions, and no reprisals for discussing pay.
• Complaints and appeals. From August 1, 2026, an employer must deposit the amount owing under an Employment Standards determination before an appeal can go ahead.

Clauses that fail most often

Most termination clauses that fail in court do so for one of three reasons. They define just cause more broadly than the law ("any breach of policy"), which can make the whole termination clause void. They promise "the minimum required by the ESA" but then leave out an entitlement or let the employer end the employment "at any time, in its sole discretion". Or they were signed on the employee's first day, after the deal was already made, with nothing new offered in return. The other recurring problem in BC is a layoff during a slow period with no layoff clause, which a court can treat as a dismissal. Sections 10 and 11 and the hiring checklist in this agreement address each of these.