Required Training (SO5-AC1

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) regulations explicitly require the employer to train employees in the safety and health aspects of their jobs. Other OSHA standards make it the employer’s responsibility to limit certain job assignments to employees who are "certified," "competent," or "qualified". A competent person is an employee who is able to recognize hazards associated with a particular task and has the ability to mitigate those hazards. Many OSHA construction standards require someone onsite – such as a foreman, supervisor or other employees – to be designated as a competent person.

A few of OSHA’s training requirements are listed below:

Emergency Action Plan. Employers are required by an OSHA regulation to have an emergency action plan and must train a sufficient number of employees to assist in a safe and orderly emergency evacuation.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Employers must provide training to any employee required by OSHA regulations to wear PPE.

Hazard Communication. Employers with hazardous chemicals in the workplace must provide employees with effective training at the time of their initial assignment and whenever a new chemical hazard is introduced into their work area.

First Aid. If an infirmary, clinic, or hospital isn’t close to the workplace, the employer must ensure that one or more individuals are adequately trained to provide first aid.

There are many more OSHA regulations that require training. Be sure to comply with all regulations that apply to your industry, workplace, and employees.

Work Safety

The organisation should measure, monitor and evaluate safety and health. Written safe procedures for those operations that require them available, e.g. workplace precautions, risk control systems or management arrangements.

Critical safety and health issues, which should be addressed and allocated resources, in the safety and health plan include the:

• Design, provision and maintenance of a safe place of work for all employees.
• Design, provision and maintenance of any article, plant, equipment or machinery for use at work in a safe manner, provision of systems of work that are planned, organised, performed, maintained or revised, so as to be safe, particularly for safety-critical process operations or services.
• Performance of ongoing hazard identification and Risk Assessments, and compliance with the general principles of prevention as set out in the legislation.
• Provision and distribution of safety and health information, instruction, training and supervision as required.
• Operation of safety and health consultation, employee participation and safety representation programmes.
• Review and keeping up-to-date the safety and health in order to prevent adverse effects on the safety and health of employees from changing processes, procedures and conditions in the workplace.
• Appointment of people responsible for keeping safety and health control systems in place and making them aware of their responsibilities.
• Establishment of monitoring arrangements, including safety and health inspections and audits, which should be used by the employer to ensure ongoing compliance with legal duties, responsibilities and controls.
• Development of in-house safety and health competence.
• Use of standards, Codes of Practice, guidelines or industry practices.
• Co-operation required from employees and disciplinary procedures for non-compliance.

However, this list is not exhaustive and the critical safety and health issues that could be covered by the policy will depend on the risks in the organisation. If the above issues are adequately covered elsewhere in the Safety Statement or in the safety and health management system, they might need only to be referred to in the safety and health policy. Backup documentation may also be referred to in the policy.