Employing family members and voluntary staff

Health and safety issues

Consider that younger employees may be inexperienced or unaware of health and safety hazards.

Older workers may need refresher training in health and safety matters or to do their jobs. Consider vulnerability to exposure from excessive lighting, glare and heat.

All businesses must carry out a risk assessment. Those with five or more employees must record significant findings. See our guide on risk assessment - an overview.

Legal provisions for young workers' safety include:

• carrying out a risk assessment or reviewing existing arrangements before employing them
• assessing psychological factors, eg maturity, awareness, and the need for extra training/supervision
• assessing physiological factors, eg strength, fitness, and the need for additional protection
• providing information to parents/guardians about risks and protection measures

See guidance on legal provisions for young workers' safety on the HSE website.

You can also download the guide to health and safety for work experience from the HSE website (PDF).

Voluntary workers
Organisations staffed entirely by volunteers aren't required to carry out a risk assessment, but it may be difficult to demonstrate your legal duty of care - not to let your operations harm their health - if you don’t.

The legal obligations for the health and safety of voluntary workers are:

• a general duty of care to avoid causing injury
• a duty to ensure that people not in your employment who may be affected by your operations are not exposed to health and safety risks

It is good practice to treat voluntary workers with the same consideration for health and safety as you would treat paid staff.

Download guidance on health and safety of voluntary workers from the NCV website (DOC).

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• Family employees - consider your motives
• Family employees - minimising business risks
• Preventing communication breakdowns
• Employing your spouse
• Employing younger family members or volunteers
• Voluntary staff - points to consider
• Voluntary staff - contract rights, benefits and allowances
• Health and safety issues
• Tax reporting requirements - young, old or voluntary staff
• Here's how our business overcame the pitfalls of employing family members

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