Do you as worker and Shareholder view yourself as an employee?
by Liam
Company owners by definition hold at least one share in the Company and if they work for the benefit of the company they could be construed as employees.
If a shareholder works day to day for the Company (under a contract of service) they may be an employee.
This interesting observation becomes relevant when complying with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to produce an appropriate policy. Take a small company with 2 shareholders that work for the company each day and 4 employees. On face value the exemption of fewer than 5 employees may appear to apply, as many owner-employees do not see themselves as employees. However, in reality it will not as the shareholders who work for the Company may be, in law, employees and therefore a policy will be required.
Beware all you owners of small Companies! Remember to count yourself!
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[...] A couple of weeks ago, this blog posted a reminder to owner/managers of companies to count themselves as employees for the purpose of counting the number of employees employed by the Company for the purposes of statutory rights contingent on a Company being of a certain size in terms of number of employees http://www.pjhlaw.co.uk/blog/do-you-company-shareholders-who-work-for-the-company-see-yourselves-as-…. [...]
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