Fiduciary Duties of Managers and Directors

Directors Fiduciary Duties

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Directors are in a position of trust within their organisations. Therefore, they have “fiduciary duties” to their employees’, especially when it comes to employees’ “health and safety at work”.

An employer’s management may also have fiduciaries should their title contain the word “director” such as a ‘health and safety director’ – ‘finance director’ – ‘sales director’ or ‘managing director’.

The Health and Safety Executive have produced a bulletin INDG 417. These are ‘guidelines’ for directors to follow to observe their [health and safety obligations] to their respective employees. What the guidelines establish are this:

“Strong and active leadership from the top, establishing ‘effective’ downward communication to ‘engage the workforce’ in the ‘promotion’ and ‘achievement of safe, and healthy working conditions; provide high quality ‘training‘, identify and manage ‘health and safety risks’, accessing competent advice, monitoring reporting and reviewing performance.”

It is well worth a read, as company directors are responsible for “championing” and “promoting” health and safety [within] the workplace. Therefore, the employer’s health and safety policies and procedures are driven into the workforce by its company directors, who are responsible (fiduciary obligations) to engage, involve, promote and communicate the organisations “health and safety” policies and procedures down the chain of command to their “ordinary employees”.

In the authority of Shepherds Investments Ltd v Walters [2006] EWHC 836 (Ch), [2007] IRLR 110, the Court found that even senior employees owe fiduciary obligations by reason of their seniority, even if they are not directors.

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