HR glossary · Ending employment and discipline

Working notice

Working notice means telling an employee their last day in advance and having them keep working, at normal pay, until that day arrives.

Also called: notice to be worked, working out notice

What working notice means

Working notice is advance written notice of termination that the employee works through. You tell the person their job will end on a set date, and they keep coming to work and being paid as usual until then. It is the alternative to pay in lieu of notice, where you end the job right away and pay out the notice period.

Both meet the same legal obligation. The difference is practical: working notice costs you the wages you would have paid anyway and gives you time to hand over work, while pay in lieu gets a clean break at the cost of paying for time you do not get back.

How it works

Give the notice in writing, with the exact last day. The notice period starts when the employee receives it, so a letter handed over on a Friday afternoon does not count from Monday morning of that week. Count the weeks your province requires for the employee's length of service.

During working notice, treat the job as normal. Keep the same pay, hours and benefits. Avoid using the notice period to pile on extra duties, cut shifts or move the person somewhere they would not have worked; that can undermine the notice and invite a complaint.

Working notice is not always the right choice. It can be hard on morale, and it is risky where the person has access to money, customer data or key client relationships. Many small employers use a mix: a short working period for a handover, then pay in lieu for the rest.

If you also owe common-law reasonable notice, the same logic applies to the longer period, but the longer it is, the more likely you will pay some or all of it instead. Write down what you decided and why.

Working notice by province

Every jurisdiction allows written notice to be worked instead of paid. A few add rules for what happens during the notice period.

Where the work is done	The rule
Federal	For a group termination of 50 or more employees at one establishment within 4 weeks, the employer must give 16 weeks' written notice to the Head of Compliance and Enforcement.
Ontario	An employee who gets written termination notice keeps their right to severance pay by giving 2 weeks' written notice of resignation that takes effect during the statutory notice period.
Ontario	In a mass termination, employees can take up to 3 unpaid days of job-seeking leave during the notice period (since 27 November 2025). This does not apply if the notice is 25% or less of the required period and the rest is paid in lieu.

Rows show only the notice-period rules we confirmed; check your province for others.

Example: A handover at a Moncton accounting office

Maya runs a 9-person bookkeeping office in Moncton. She decides to end the job of a junior bookkeeper who has worked there for 3 years. In New Brunswick, 6 months to under 5 years means at least 2 weeks' notice.

Maya gives a letter on a Monday with a last day 2 weeks later, on a Friday. The bookkeeper keeps the same hours and pay, finishes the month-end files and trains a colleague. Maya pays final wages on the next regular pay day and vacation pay within 21 days of the last day.

Hollis tracks the dates

Hollis tracks last days, so a working notice period and the final pay and ROE tasks that follow it show up on your list on time.

Try Hollis live

Free tools and guides for this

Questions about working notice

Can an employee refuse to work their notice period?

They can resign instead. What that means for their entitlements depends on the province; in Ontario, for example, an employee keeps severance pay by giving 2 weeks' written notice of resignation during the notice period.

Can I change someone's duties during working notice?

It is safest not to. Keep pay, hours and duties the same so the notice period counts as proper notice.

Is working notice better than pay in lieu?

Neither is better by law; both meet the obligation. Working notice keeps someone on for a handover, while pay in lieu gives a clean break.

Official sources

General information for Canadian employers, not legal advice. Rules differ by province and territory and change over time, so check with your provincial employment standards office (or the federal Labour Program if you are federally regulated) before you rely on it. See employment standards by province.

Checked against official sources on 4 November 2026.