Health and Safety Training for Employees: Your Legal Duty

Yes, it's a legal requirement. Every employer in Great Britain must give employees adequate health and safety training, pay for it and run it in working hours. It's due when someone starts, when their job or responsibilities change, and when new equipment, technology or ways of working bring new risks. Then it's repeated periodically where appropriate. The law names no courses and sets no minimum hours. The standard is training that's adequate for each person's job.

What the law says about health and safety training for employees

Two pieces of law carry the duty. In the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 2(2)(c) says your general duty includes "the provision of such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of his employees".

Regulation 13 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 puts dates on it. You must make sure employees "are provided with adequate health and safety training" when they're recruited, and when they're "exposed to new or increased risks". Paragraph (3) says the training must "be repeated periodically where appropriate", be adapted to new or changed risks, and "take place during working hours".

Regulation 13 also says you must take each employee's "capabilities as regards health and safety" into account when you hand out tasks. The job has to fit the person, not only their training.

Risk assessment, policy and your wider legal duties have their own guide.

The four moments training is due

When someone starts

Start with an induction on day one. Cover who to ask, how to report a hazard, where the first aid kit is and what to do when the alarm goes. The First-Aid Regulations 1981 separately require you to tell staff where your first aid equipment, facilities and people are. In England and Wales, article 21 of the Fire Safety Order 2005 sets the same starting point for fire safety training.

When their job changes

A transfer or new responsibilities trigger training when they bring new or bigger risks. A picker promoted to team leader now has to spot other people's unsafe lifting as well as avoid their own. Train for the new role before they start it.

When equipment, technology or the way you work changes

The regulation names three kinds of change: new or altered work equipment, new technology, and a new or changed system of work. A new pallet truck counts.

Periodically, where appropriate

Neither the Act, the 1999 Regulations nor HSE's general training guidance sets a refresher interval. A few areas have their own. HSE's first aid guidance treats certificates as valid for three years. Its asbestos guidance says refreshers for people whose work disturbs asbestos "should be provided every year". Everywhere else, you set the timing, and HSE says training records help you decide when.

Who pays, and when it happens

You pay. Section 9 of the 1974 Act says: "No employer shall levy or permit to be levied on any employee of his any charge in respect of anything done or provided in pursuance of any specific requirement of the relevant statutory provisions."

Regulation 13 is one of those specific requirements. So you can't charge staff for the training it demands, or let anyone else charge them. HSE's guidance for small businesses says health and safety training "must be free for employees".

Regulation 13(3)(c) puts the training in working hours. For a part-timer, that means their hours, not a morning they'd normally have off.

What counts as adequate training

No law lists the courses an employee must take. "Adequate" is the standard, and it's judged against the job. HSE's guidance for small businesses says that for a low-risk business, such as an office, simple information or instructions are likely to be enough. HSE's training leaflet adds that training "isn't just about formal 'classroom' courses".

For a practical test, ask each person what could hurt them in their job, how likely it is, what's in place to stop it and what to do in an emergency. Those are the four things HSE says everyone needs information on. If they can answer in their own words, the training has done its job. A certificate alone doesn't prove it. As HSE's asbestos guidance puts it, a course on its own "will not make a worker competent".

Keeping staff training records: the law and good practice

What the law requires

There's no general legal duty to keep a training record for each employee. The nearest general rule is regulation 5 of the 1999 Regulations. Once you employ five or more people, it asks you to record your health and safety arrangements. That's your system, not a file on each person.

Two areas go further, through HSE's Approved Codes of Practice. The code for rider-operated lift trucks says employers "need to keep a record for each employee who has satisfactorily completed basic training and testing". The asbestos code expects a record of each person's training for anyone whose work disturbs asbestos, licensed or not. A code isn't law on its own. But under section 17 of the 1974 Act, if you're prosecuted, a court can treat not following a relevant code as proof of the breach, unless you show you complied another way.

For first aiders, HSE's guidance says to keep a record of who they are and when they qualified. That's guidance, not a legal duty.

What's good practice

For everyone else, HSE says records help you manage training, even when you train in-house, and show who's due a refresher. A useful record shows the person's name, what the training covered, the date, who gave it, how you checked they understood, and when to review it.

A simple starting programme for a small employer

For a small office, shop or warehouse, start here:

1. A day-one induction for every new starter.
2. The hazards of each role, from your risk assessment. A cashier's list looks nothing like a forklift driver's.
3. Fire awareness for everyone, and fuller training for anyone you name as a fire marshal.
4. First aid awareness for everyone, and proper training for your first aiders.
5. Manual handling wherever lifting, carrying, pushing or pulling is part of the job.
6. A record for each person, with a review date.

To decide what comes first, see prioritising staff training. To make the case internally, start with why it matters.

Getting your staff trained

Our online health and safety course for employees is for anyone new to health and safety or due a refresher. It works on a phone, tablet or computer. It covers manual handling, COSHH (hazardous substances), slips, trips and falls, first aid and fire safety, and ends with a 25-question test and a downloadable e-certificate. The hazards and emergency plans of your own workplace still need to come from you. For specific risks, browse the health and safety courses.

Frequently asked questions