Alberta Workplace Harassment Policy: A Plain-English Employer Guide for 2026

Alberta employers should not treat workplace harassment as only a conduct or human-resources problem. Alberta occupational health and safety law treats both violence and harassment as workplace hazards. The employer must identify the hazards, involve the appropriate workplace participants, develop and implement a violence and harassment prevention plan, train workers, investigate incidents and keep the system current. The important Alberta change is structural. Since the updated Part 27 of the Occupational Health and Safety Code took effect on March 31, 2025, the law has required one combined violence and harassment prevention plan . Employers should therefore avoid relying on an old stand-alone harassment policy that is disconnected from hazard assessment, violence prevention, emergency response and worker training. This guide explains the current Alberta requirements in plain English. It is built around Canada Policy Manual's detailed Alberta template and is intended to help an employer turn a document into a working prevention system. Ready to put the Alberta plan into practice? Start with the jurisdiction-specific prevention-plan template, then replace every placeholder with your workplace details. Download the Free Alberta Workplace Harassment and Violence Prevention Plan Every Alberta employer covered by the provincial occupational health and safety regime must develop and implement a violence and harassment prevention plan. The employer must treat violence and harassment as hazards in its hazard-assessment and control process. In practical terms, the employer needs to: identify violence and harassment hazards and assess the work and work site; consult the joint health and safety committee or health and safety representative, if there is one, or affected workers as far as reasonably practicable if there is neither; develop and implement a prevention plan containing the required measures and procedures; explain how workers will be informed about threats; establish workable reporting procedures; explain how complaints and incidents will be investigated; protect confidentiality within the limits set by law and a fair response; train workers in the four subjects listed in OHS Code section 391; investigate every incident of violence or harassment and prepare the required report; retain the incident investigation report for at least two years; advise an affected worker who reports injury or adverse symptoms to consult a health professional of the worker's choice; review the plan on each prescribed trigger and at least once every three years; and comply with additional controls if the employer operates a covered retail fuelling outlet, convenience store or limited-general-goods retail location. This article provides general legal information and drafting guidance. It is not legal advice and cannot determine the correct jurisdiction, sector rules, collective-agreement obligations, privacy requirements or response to a particular incident. The definition comes from Alberta's Occupational Health and Safety Act . In simplified language, harassment includes a single incident or repeated incidents of objectionable or unwelcome conduct, comments, bullying or actions by a person when that person knows or ought reasonably to know the behaviour will or would cause offence or humiliation to a worker, or adversely affects the worker's health and safety. The definition includes: sexual solicitations or advances; conduct, comments, bullying or actions connected to a ground protected by the Alberta Human Rights Act ; and conduct from any person, not only a co-worker or supervisor, when it affects a worker at the work site. The law excludes reasonable conduct by an employer or supervisor relating to management of workers or a work site. That exclusion is important, but it is not permission to manage abusively. One serious incident can qualify Unlike definitions that are built mainly around a “course” or pattern of conduct, Alberta's definition expressly includes a single incident or repeated incidents . Employers should not reject a report simply because it describes only one event. The whole legal test still matters. A minor disagreement will not automatically become statutory harassment. But one serious humiliation, sexual advance, discriminatory act or bullying incident may be enough when the statutory elements are met. A single threat or assault may also engage the violence provisions. Intent is not decisive An alleged harasser may say the words were meant as humour or that no offence was intended. That does not end the analysis. The test also asks what the person ought reasonably to have known and whether the behaviour caused or would cause offence or humiliation, or adversely affected health and safety. The investigator should examine the words or actions, the relationship, the setting, prior interactions, power differences, the audience, any digital record and the effect on the worker. A worker&#3