THE LAW BEHIND THE HUSTLE LABOUR LAW SERIES — PART 3 Casual Workers: When “Just Helping” Turns Into Legal Trouble

 

 

In the world of small business, it’s very common to have someone who’s “just helping.” Maybe it started with them passing by the shop one day and before you knew it, they were arranging stock, helping customers, running errands and holding things down. You give them something small at the end of the week, they come back again the next and over time, you begin to rely on them. They’re not on your payroll, there’s no contract, and you don’t even call them staff. You just say, “Oh, that’s Kojo, he helps me out.” It feels harmless. It feels manageable. But the law sees it very differently.

Under Ghana’s Labour Act, specifically Section 78, a casual worker is someone employed on a short-term basis, usually for urgent, temporary, or seasonal tasks, and who does not work for more than six months in a year.Their wages are typically calculated per day, based on the actual days worked. In other words, casual workers are supposed to come in, complete a one-off job or a clearly time-bound assignment  and leave. They’re not part of your day-to-day structure. They’re not your regulars. The relationship is supposed to be brief and clearly defined. Once it stretches beyond that, everything changes.

Here is where many business owners unknowingly step into dangerous territory. You see, when someone you call “casual” ends up working with you for an extended period whether continuously or off and on and that time adds up to six months or more within a year, the law no longer sees them as casual. It sees them as your employee. At that point, whether or not you’ve put it in writing, the legal expectation is that they should have a written contract. They should receive leave. You can’t just tell them not to come back tomorrow because you had a disagreement or because sales are slow. Once that six-month threshold is crossed, the law assumes a more permanent relationship exists, and it expects you to treat it accordingly.

What’s even more important is that the transition from casual to permanent doesn’t require any paperwork or ceremony. The consistency of the person’s presence, the frequency of their work and the nature of their duties are what the law considers. So if you’ve had someone in your workspace, serving your customers, handling your stock, helping you grow even if you never used the word “employee”, once their time with you crosses that line, the law steps in, with or without your consent. And the day things fall apart, the Labour Commission won’t ask what you called them. They’ll ask how long they worked for you, what they did and whether you complied with the law.

This is why structure matters. Calling someone “just help” doesn’t protect you from liability. Saying you pay them weekly in cash doesn’t exempt you from labour obligations. If someone is working with you in a consistent and meaningful way, then you need to put the right systems in place, not just for compliance, but for clarity, accountability and peace of mind. A business cannot be built on guesswork. You can’t leave yourself open to legal issues simply because the relationship started casually. If it has grown into something regular, it must be formalized.

So what should you do? It’s simple. Be honest with yourself. If the person is part of your business, showing up regularly, contributing meaningfully and staying beyond a few weeks here and there. Give them a proper contract. Respect the relationship. Build structure around it. Because the day that worker walks away with a grievance and reports you, no one will care that you thought it was a casual arrangement. They will care that the law was ignored. The penalty won’t fall on the worker,  it will fall on the business owner who failed to do the right thing.