The HR manager at the mid-sized distribution company operating in western Canada received a letter that carried no individual employee's name at the top, no reference to any complaint on file, and no immediate explanation of what had prompted the correspondence. The letter stated only that an officer with Employment Standards had selected the company for a compliance audit under the Employment Standards Code and that the officer would attend the workplace in 3 weeks to examine payroll records, time-tracking systems, employment agreements, and classification determinations for the entire workforce. The HR manager had spent months navigating a complaint filed by a former warehouse supervisor alleging $14,200 in unpaid overtime and exempt misclassification, a complaint that had already drawn scrutiny to the company's treatment of employees working 50 to 55-hour weeks over 2 years. Now, without any new complaint being filed, without any identified complainant, and without any clear connection to that earlier matter, the company faced a sweeping examination that could extend to approximately 85 permanent staff, between 15 and 30 temporary workers sourced through a staffing agency, and 8 to 12 contractors engaged as delivery drivers and IT consultants. The distinction between a complaint-driven investigation and a compliance audit initiated without a complaint is fundamental to understanding how Alberta employers face regulatory exposure, and this distinction governs everything from the scope of documents the officer may demand to the remedies that flow from audit findings.