Description
Course overview
This course is for employees who have been nominated as health and safety representatives, or who are about to be designated as one. It covers the whole role: why the law requires representatives, how a representative is designated, what a representative may do, how to inspect an area and spot hazards, how incidents are reported and investigated, and how a health and safety committee works.
It is built on the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the General Administrative Regulations. It is self-paced, it works on a phone, and it is written in plain English for a workforce for whom English is often a second or third language.
What you’ll learn
- Why the law requires health and safety representatives, and when a workplace must have them.
- How many representatives a workplace needs, and when a health and safety committee must be established.
- How a representative is chosen and designated: consultation first, then a written designation for a named area and period.
- What a representative may do – the full list of functions under the OHS Act – and what the role is not.
- What a representative is entitled to: information, documents, access to inspectors and protection from victimisation.
- How to run an inspection as a cycle: plan, inspect, record, follow up.
- How to spot physical, chemical, biological and ergonomic hazards, and how to write them up so they get fixed.
- Which incidents must be reported, how fast, and how a representative takes part in an incident investigation.
- How health and safety committee meetings work and how recommendations reach the employer.
Course duration
Approximately 1.5 hours of online learning.
Assessment & Certification
The course ends with a final assessment. Questions are drawn at random from the course question bank, so no two attempts are the same. You need 80% to pass, and you can reset the quiz and try again.
A certificate is issued automatically on successful completion.
An employer sign-off sheet is included with every enrolment. The employer uses it to record that the employee has demonstrated the course competencies in their own workplace, and to make the written designation of the employee as a health and safety representative for a named area. A certificate shows knowledge; the sign-off sheet is what turns that knowledge into a defensible workplace designation.
Why this course
The Occupational Health and Safety Act requires an employer with more than 20 employees at a workplace to designate health and safety representatives in writing, after consultation. Where two or more representatives are designated, a health and safety committee must be established, and it must meet at least once every three months.
A designation on its own does not make the role work. The Act also requires the employer to provide the training, facilities and assistance a representative reasonably needs. This course is that training, delivered in a form an employer can evidence: an enrolment record, a dated certificate and a signed workplace verification.
This course is competency/awareness training presented by Safety Toolbox – Safety Toolbox (Pty) Ltd · Reg 2026/639216/07.
