Volunteers at a Ltd. company?

JRAXT

Hey everyone,
I'm a University student currently going through the process of registering my small business as a Ltd company, It won't actually be making an profit yet, as I plan on reinvesting all the money back into the company.
We currently have a few volunteers, and without going into details of the company, they're happy to volunteer for us as it brings them something too. Mostly for now they are online contributors.
I'm having a hard time understanding the employment law as a Ltd. company. Does anyone know if I'm allowed to have volunteers working for a "profit making" company (obviously subject to usual volunteer laws such as being able to stop whenever they want, support, no promise of future payment etc).
I would love to pay them, but the business isnt making any making any money at all yet and we just wouldn't be able to make payroll.
If anyone was planning on recommend i register as a sole trader etc, there are a range of reasons why I cant do that, but I won't go into all that on this post.

Would be great to get some advice. Thanks so much!

Mistral001

I would have thought that these volunteers would have to be treated in the same way as interns.  Also, insurance for these volunteers is probably going to be a priority.  Do they come under public liability insurance  or under  employer liability insurance?

Annisele

No, you can't have unpaid volunteers - it doesn't sound as though you're setting up a charity or a voluntary organisation etc (see here). Practically I think it's unlikely that you'll get in any trouble unless you seriously irriate your "volunteers" - the national minium wage laws are widely ignored, and there's not much appetite for proper enforcement - but if any of your "volunteers" do decide to sue you for back pay, there's a decent chance they will win and you'll have to pay them for the work they've done.

From that perspective it doesn't matter whether you run things as a limited company or as a sole trader - though the advantage of a ltd is that your "volunteers" would be suing your company rather than you personally.

I'm probably showing my left wing bias here, but if you can't afford to pay your workers you can't afford to run a company.

I suppose it's possible that you could make your "volunteers" directors of the limited company - national minimum wage laws don't always apply to directors - but that has huge risks of its own.

It's also possible you could go into partnership with your "volunteers" with some kind of agreement that they and your company would share in future profits - but that also sounds super messy.