ILO-OSH 2001 Occupational Safety Management Training Course

Course overview

Organisations often have safety procedures, incident reports and training records but lack a management system that connects policy, worker consultation, hazard control, performance measurement and continual improvement. This creates inconsistent controls across sites, weak accountability for corrective actions and difficulty demonstrating that occupational safety is managed systematically. The ILO-OSH 2001 Occupational Safety Management Training Course helps practitioners turn separate safety activities into an integrated occupational safety and health management system (OSHMS) aligned to the International Labour Organization’s ILO-OSH 2001 guidelines.

Participants examine the ILO-OSH 2001 framework in detail: policy, organising, planning and implementation, evaluation, and action for improvement. They learn to define OSH responsibilities, establish consultation arrangements, identify hazards, assess risks, set measurable objectives, manage operational controls, investigate incidents, conduct internal evaluations and maintain records that support management review. The course also maps ILO-OSH 2001 requirements against ISO 45001:2018, enabling participants to use the guidelines in organisations seeking certification, strengthening an existing system, or building a practical non-certified OSHMS.

Delivery combines instructor-led explanation with structured workshops using realistic workplace scenarios. Participants work through an OSHMS gap assessment, develop policy and responsibility statements, build a risk-control register, test performance indicators and prepare an improvement plan. They leave with a completed ILO-OSH 2001 implementation workbook containing a gap-analysis template, draft OSH objectives, action-tracking arrangements, audit prompts and a prioritised 90-day implementation plan tailored to their own workplace or a supplied case organisation.

The course is particularly valuable for HSE professionals, operational managers and internal auditors who must make safety governance visible, auditable and workable at site level. It is designed for professionals who already understand basic workplace hazards and now need a recognised system method for coordinating safety performance across departments, contractors and management levels.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Interpret the five ILO-OSH 2001 OSHMS elements and translate them into workplace management-system requirements
• Conduct an ILO-OSH 2001 gap assessment using evidence from policies, procedures, records and interviews
• Draft an occupational safety and health policy with defined commitments, responsibilities and worker-participation provisions
• Build a hazard identification and risk-control register using the hierarchy of controls and assigned action ownership
• Set measurable OSH objectives, leading indicators and lagging indicators for performance evaluation
• Design operational-control arrangements for high-risk work, contractors, emergency preparedness and change management
• Plan an internal OSHMS evaluation using audit criteria, interview questions, sampling evidence and nonconformity statements
• Produce a prioritised 90-day ILO-OSH 2001 implementation and continual-improvement plan

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Health and Safety Managers — who need to establish or strengthen a structured occupational safety and health management system
• HSE Officers and Advisors — who translate safety requirements into procedures, registers, inspections and improvement actions
• Operations and Site Managers — who are accountable for applying risk controls and reviewing safety performance in their areas
• Internal Auditors — who assess OSHMS conformance and need an evidence-based ILO-OSH 2001 audit approach
• HR and Training Managers — who coordinate competence, consultation and worker-participation arrangements within an OSHMS
• Project and Contractor Managers — who must integrate contractor controls and site safety responsibilities into operational planning

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have working familiarity with basic occupational health and safety concepts, including hazard identification, risk assessment, incident reporting and the hierarchy of controls. Experience in a safety, operations, facilities, engineering, HR or supervisory role is helpful because exercises use real workplace responsibilities and records. Participants should be able to read organisational procedures and use simple spreadsheet templates. Prior knowledge of ILO-OSH 2001 or ISO 45001 is not required, and no formal auditor qualification is needed. A laptop is useful for adapting the supplied workbook, but specialist safety software is not assumed.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led modules to explain each ILO-OSH 2001 element, followed by facilitated application workshops. Participants assess a case organisation’s documents, identify gaps in policy and responsibilities, build risk-control and action registers, and test audit evidence against defined criteria. Small-group work focuses on operational realities such as contractor control, incident learning and management review. Each participant progressively develops an implementation workbook, then uses the final session to prioritise actions, identify stakeholders and plan a 90-day workplace application.

Course outline

Day 1: ILO-OSH 2001 foundations and OSH governance

• Purpose, scope and structure of the ILO-OSH 2001 guidelines
• The OSHMS cycle: policy, organising, planning, evaluation and improvement
• ILO-OSH 2001 and ISO 45001:2018 alignment points
• Legal compliance, due diligence and voluntary management-system commitments
• Occupational safety and health policy content and approval controls
• Roles, accountabilities and authority from top management to supervisors
• Worker participation, safety committees and consultation mechanisms

Workshop: Participants complete a governance map for a case organisation and produce a draft responsibility-and-consultation matrix.

Day 2: Planning hazards, risks and controls

• Hazard identification methods for routine, non-routine and emergency work
• Risk assessment criteria, risk matrices and risk-register design
• Applying the hierarchy of controls to select effective treatments
• Legal and other requirements registers for occupational safety and health
• OSH objectives, targets and implementation programmes
• Management of change for equipment, processes, staffing and work methods
• Contractor and procurement risk-control integration

Workshop: Participants build a risk-control register for a high-risk work scenario, including control hierarchy decisions, owners and due dates.

Day 3: Implementing operational OSH controls

• Operational-control procedures and safe system of work design
• Competence assessment, induction, refresher training and training records
• Communication channels for workers, contractors and visitors
• Document control, version management and retention of OSH records
• Emergency preparedness, response drills and post-drill evaluation
• Occupational health surveillance and exposure-monitoring interfaces
• Incident reporting, investigation and corrective-action verification

Workshop: Participants analyse an incident case and produce an investigation action plan linking root causes to revised operational controls.

Day 4: Evaluating OSHMS performance

• Leading and lagging OSH performance indicators
• Inspection programmes, workplace observation and control verification
• Monitoring occupational exposures and health-related performance data
• Internal audit planning, scope, criteria and evidence sampling
• Interview techniques for managers, supervisors and worker representatives
• Writing findings, nonconformities, observations and corrective actions
• Management review inputs, decisions and follow-up records

Workshop: Participants conduct a simulated ILO-OSH 2001 internal audit and produce an evidence-based audit finding report.

Day 5: Continual improvement and workplace implementation

• Corrective-action prioritisation using risk, effort and business impact
• Root-cause analysis with the Five Whys and cause-and-effect diagrams
• Continual-improvement cycles and action-tracking governance
• Integrating worker feedback into OSHMS improvement decisions
• Preparing management-review dashboards and decision papers
• Building an ILO-OSH 2001 implementation roadmap
• Preparing for ISO 45001 transition or certification-readiness assessment

Workshop: Participants finalise and present a 90-day ILO-OSH 2001 implementation plan with milestones, owners, resources and review measures.

Tools & standards covered

ILO-OSH 2001 Guidelines on Occupational Safety and Health Management Systems, ISO 45001:2018 Occupational health and safety management systems, Microsoft Excel, BowTieXP

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions