Occupational Health And Safety Specialist At The Enterprise In Ukraine

To ensure normal functioning of the enterprise, all employees must follow safety rules at the workplace. Although the phrase “adherence to work-related health and safety rules” is mainly associated with industrial production or construction, most business entities shall have an occupational health and safety specialist.

Why most businesses shall have a occupational health and safety specialist? The key reasons are as follows:

• To prevent workplace accidents;
• To develop and update the mandatory documentation, etc.

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Liability of an occupational health and safety specialist 

Due to the nature of the work and its importance, an occupational health and safety specialist has many different duties, in particular to observe and control employees, holding a personal accountable for breach of duty.

In addition to the traditional disciplinary and material responsibility of employees, an occupational health and safety engineer may be charged with administrative and even criminal offence.

For example, in the event of breach of the time limits for certifying workplaces or failure to notify the relevant authority of a workplace accident (including non-fulfillment of other requirements of labour protection legislation), such a specialist will be imposed a fine in the amount from 20 to 50 non-taxable minimum incomes.

And if the failure to perform the duties resulted in harm to the employee, or other serious consequences, the person may be charged with criminal offence. Such criminal offence may carry a penalty of up to eight years’ imprisonment.

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Requirements for the company’s occupational health and safety engineer

It’s worth remembering that you can’t hire any person for this position. An occupational health and safety specialist must be a professional, i.e. have a full higher education in the relevant areas:

• in case of graduation by 2015 - Specialty N0. 6.170202. Occupational health and safety;
• after 2015 - Specialty No. 263. Civil Security.

However, it’s worth remembering that a person mainly responsible for safety at work is the director of the enterprise. His competence includes creating the necessary conditions, including the recruitment of qualified specialists, who will level the risks of harm to the health of other employees.

Therefore, if the employer is not a large industrial company but, for example, a small catering facility, then any person who has completed primary training at the employer and has the minimum required competence may be responsible for occupational safety at workplace, even without officially successfully completing four years of higher education. Although this is not legally correct, the inspectors of the State Labor Service do not consider it as a punishable offence.

However, such a person is obliged to be re-certified every three years by the employer or by certified institutions, confirming his/her competence to perform the work duties.

Our company provides a variety of business support services, including consultations on the organization of work of an occupational health and safety specialist at the enterprise, execution of mandatory documentation, etc.

If you want to organize occupational health and safety at your company in such a way that it would satisfy any inspection of state authorities, don’t hesitate to call us.

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