Occupational Health and Safety Compliance for Safety Representatives Training Course

Course overview

Safety representatives are expected to identify unsafe conditions, raise concerns credibly, participate in inspections and investigations, and verify that corrective actions are actually completed. Yet many representatives receive limited training in interpreting legal duties, distinguishing hazards from risks, documenting evidence, or escalating unresolved issues through the right consultation channels. This course equips participants to perform the representative role with sound judgement, defensible records and a practical focus on preventing harm.

Participants learn how occupational health and safety compliance systems operate, from legislation, employer duties and worker consultation rights to ISO 45001 requirements, hazard identification and risk assessment. They practise conducting workplace inspections, using risk matrices, reviewing incident data, contributing to investigations, checking controls against the hierarchy of controls, and maintaining action registers. The course also covers safety committee participation, consultation meeting preparation, contractor interface risks, emergency arrangements, and methods for communicating findings without creating unnecessary conflict.

Delivered through instructor-led workshops, facilitated case discussions and structured document reviews, the programme uses realistic scenarios involving machinery guarding, hazardous substances, manual handling, work at height and psychosocial hazards. Participants work with inspection checklists, risk assessment templates, incident investigation forms and compliance registers. Each participant leaves with a role-specific Safety Representative Action Pack: a completed inspection report, risk assessment, corrective-action register, consultation agenda and 90-day workplace improvement plan.

The course is designed for appointed or elected safety representatives who already work in operational environments and need practical compliance capability. It also benefits representatives supporting health and safety committees, workforce consultation arrangements or site-level assurance activities.

Course objectives

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

• Interpret applicable occupational health and safety duties, consultation rights and employer responsibilities against workplace scenarios
• Conduct structured workplace inspections using evidence-based checklists and observation techniques
• Complete task-based risk assessments using hazard registers, risk matrices and the hierarchy of controls
• Document safety concerns in clear inspection reports with risk ratings, evidence and recommended actions
• Participate in incident investigations using the five-whys method and contributory-factor analysis
• Evaluate corrective actions for control effectiveness, ownership, due dates and close-out evidence
• Prepare safety committee agendas and consultation records that escalate unresolved risks appropriately
• Produce a 90-day safety representative action plan linked to priority hazards and compliance gaps

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Elected Safety Representatives — who need to inspect work areas, represent worker concerns and follow up controls
• Appointed Health and Safety Representatives — who require a practical method for meeting formal representative duties
• Safety Committee Members — who need to turn consultation discussions into tracked compliance actions
• Employee Health and Safety Champions — who support local hazard reporting and workforce engagement
• Frontline Supervisors with Safety Representative Duties — who must separate representative responsibilities from operational oversight
• Union or Worker Representatives — who need evidence-based tools for raising unresolved workplace safety issues

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have at least six months of workplace exposure in an operational, technical, facilities, construction, manufacturing, logistics or office environment, and should understand common workplace hazards such as slips, manual handling, machinery, chemicals or work at height. Familiarity with their organisation’s incident-reporting process, safety procedures and basic risk-rating terminology is useful. Participants should bring examples of local forms or procedures where permitted. No previous auditor qualification, legal qualification, ISO 45001 certification or specialist safety software experience is required. The course does not assume advanced mathematics or prior investigation training.

Training methodology

The instructor combines focused teaching on compliance duties and ISO 45001 with practical workshops using inspection checklists, risk matrices, incident records and action registers. Participants analyse workplace photographs, sample procedures and realistic case files, then work in small groups to test evidence, rate risks and agree proportionate controls. Facilitated role-plays simulate safety committee discussions and escalation conversations. Each day closes with an applied task, culminating in an individual 90-day action plan that can be adapted for the participant’s own work area.

Course outline

Day 1: The safety representative role and compliance framework

• Safety representative functions, authority and role boundaries
• Employer, supervisor, worker and contractor duty-holder responsibilities
• Applicable legislation, approved codes and internal safety procedures
• ISO 45001 worker consultation and participation requirements
• Consultation mechanisms, safety committees and issue escalation routes
• Legal versus organisational compliance obligations
• Building an evidence trail for safety concerns and recommendations

Workshop: Participants map their workplace consultation structure and produce an escalation pathway for a reported safety concern.

Day 2: Hazard identification and workplace inspection

• Planned inspection scopes, frequencies and inspection preparation
• Observation techniques for unsafe acts, conditions and exposures
• Inspection checklists for physical, chemical, ergonomic and psychosocial hazards
• Photographic evidence, field notes and objective report writing
• Hazard registers and categorisation of recurring issues
• Recognising contractor and shared-workplace interface hazards
• Immediate actions, stop-work escalation and routine corrective actions

Workshop: Using a simulated workplace walkthrough, participants complete an inspection checklist and issue a prioritised inspection report.

Day 3: Risk assessment and control verification

• Task-based risk assessment steps and hazard-source identification
• Likelihood and consequence scoring with risk matrices
• The hierarchy of controls and selection of reasonably practicable measures
• Residual-risk evaluation after control implementation
• Safe work procedures, permits and control-critical tasks
• Health exposure risks including noise, hazardous substances and ergonomics
• Verifying control effectiveness through observation and worker feedback

Workshop: Participants develop a task risk assessment for a high-risk activity and justify controls using the hierarchy of controls.

Day 4: Incidents, corrective actions and performance evidence

• Incident, near-miss and hazard-report classification
• Initial incident fact gathering and preservation of evidence
• Five-whys questioning and contributory-factor analysis
• Distinguishing root causes from immediate causes
• Corrective-action registers, action owners and target dates
• Close-out verification and evidence of control effectiveness
• Leading and lagging indicators for representative review

Workshop: Participants review a case-file incident, build a contributory-factor map and create a corrective-action register with verification criteria.

Day 5: Consultation, assurance and workplace application

• Preparing concise safety committee agendas and briefing papers
• Presenting inspection findings and risk information to management
• Handling disagreement, resistance and unresolved safety concerns
• Reviewing safety performance data and recurring hazard trends
• Internal audit preparation using ISO 45001 consultation evidence
• Ninety-day action planning for representative priorities
• Measuring action-plan progress and reporting outcomes to workers

Workshop: Participants present a safety committee briefing and complete a 90-day Safety Representative Action Pack for their own workplace.

Tools & standards covered

ISO 45001:2018, ISO 19011:2018, BowTieXP, Microsoft Excel

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