Briefing according to Regulation for Occupational Safety

One is not done with identifying hazards, mitigating and documenting them based on actions and stages of the product life cycle. The people who need to interact with the product – the target group – must get briefed on how to safely work with the product. Doing so this event is more than the bare relaying of safety behaviours, because the Briefing is anchored in paragraphs 4 and 12 of the National Labour Protection Law.

The fundament for the Briefing is the  Hazard Analysis.

This is the point of view of the German Federal Labour Court with judgement from January 11th, 2001.

In order to a successful and legally correct execution of the Briefing the following steps are mandatory:

  1. Determine the demand of the Briefing
  2. Determine the demand of qualification for managers and employees
  3. Create the schedule of the Briefing
  4. Prepare the Briefing based on the Hazard Analysis
  5. Prepare the content – observe latest insights and latest legal positions
  6. Organize
  7. Perform the Briefing
  8. Follow up and document the Briefing, if need be add to the Hazard Analysis
  9. Control success and effectiveness
  10. Ratify factory agreements and operating agreements and put them to live

It is not uncommon, that the people working on machinery don’t speak German as their mother tongue. It is, therefore, of utmost importance to build Operating Instructions and Briefing in such a manner, that these people comprehend. If need be copies of the documents in foreign language must be created and shared.


Comments are closed.