Health and Safety Training: Why Businesses Need Employees with Legal Liability Training

The Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 (OHS Act 85) stipulates the health and safety regulations for every employee and employer which need to be strictly adhered to in the workplace. If an employer or employee is non-compliant with the OHS Act 85 in the workplace, there will be a legal liability. We have outlined legal liability in the workplace, why your business needs employees with legal liability training and the benefits of choosing EMCARE for your legal liability health and safety training.

Legal Liability in the Workplace:

Legal liability in the workplace refers to the OHS Act 85 laws that define your obligations as an employer or employee for maintaining health and safety in the workplace. If there is an accident or incident in the workplace, the employer or employee needs to be held liable if there is a breach of the OHS Act 85. Workplaces need employees with legal liability training to ensure that employers and employees meet certain obligations to ensure health and safety in the workplace.

Types of Legal Liability:

We have provided an overview of the different types of legal liability that apply to the workplace.

1. Strict Liability: When an employee or employer is held liable for damages, injuries, or incidents that are not a result of negligence or intent to cause harm.
2. Criminal Liability: Criminal liability refers to the employee or employer being imprisoned for performing criminal acts in the workplace, such as theft.
3. Vicarious Liability: The employer is held liable for performing negligent acts against their employees which threaten the health and safety of the employees.
4. Civil Liability: Employers or employees being held liable for damages caused that were not a result of criminal intent or intention to cause harm. For example, civil liability would apply if an employer breached a contract with an employee.
   

Why Businesses Need Employees with Legal Liability Training:

Workplace health and safety are critical for any industry, whether your business deals with hazardous materials or is a small business selling homemade cakes. There are various ways a workplace can become legally liable for accidents or incidents if OHS Act 85 regulations are not being complied with. We have used a few hypothetical scenarios to demonstrate why every business needs employees with legal liability training.

Workplace Accidents:

Scenario: Your solar company has just been awarded a tender to install solar panels at a major warehouse. Your employees are trained to correctly install solar panels and have received up-to-date training to safely work at heights, but you have failed to regularly update your safety equipment. Whilst an employee is on top of the warehouse roof installing the solar panels, the degraded harness breaks, and your employee falls and sustains severe injuries.

The OHS Act 85 stipulates the importance of providing all employees with personal protective equipment and that these are maintained to ensure health and safety for your employees. In this scenario, your business will be held legally liable for the injuries your employee obtained due to neglecting to provide your employee with safe personal protective equipment that was needed to safely perform the work.

By having employees with legal liability training, you will be continuously updated on the OHS Act 85 regulations regarding personal protective equipment in the workplace and the importance of maintenance to avoid legal liability.

Employee Training:

Scenario: Your business has a warehouse stocked with products that you need your employees to be able to safely receive, stack, and de-stack daily. You consider this to be a simple procedure, therefore you do not provide your employees with safe stacking and storage training. Unfortunately, there is a workplace incident where an employee incorrectly de-stacked products, which lead to the collapse of multiple stored products. Two employees are injured, and you have multiple damaged products which will need to be replaced.

According to the OHS Act 85, an employer’s duty is to ensure that all employees receive all necessary information and training for workplace duties to ensure the health and safety of the employees. In this scenario, your business failed to provide employees with adequate training to perform their work safely, therefore your business will be held legally liable.

An employee with legal liability training will be fully aware of the OHS Act 85 requirements regarding training to ensure health and safety in the workplace. This employee will inform the employer about the specific health and safety training requirements that your employees need to receive.

Workplace Incidents:

Scenario: Your business supplies gas bottles to residential homes, and you have hired an employee to load the gas bottles into the delivery vehicle. You have informed the employee of the hazards associated with the work and provided all necessary training on how to safely load the gas bottles without damaging the gas bottles or endangering the health and safety of the workplace. Your employee is negligent whilst loading the gas bottles at your warehouse and haphazardly thrusts the gas bottles into the delivery vehicle. A gas bottle becomes damaged in the process, and there is now a gas leak which is a safety hazard.

In this scenario, the employee is not obeying the health and safety rules of the workplace. As stipulated in the OHS Act 85, every employee needs to take responsibility to perform his duties in a way that does not endanger the health and safety of themselves or other employees. Your employee can be held legally liable for actions in the workplace that go against health and safety laws in the OHS Act 85.

An employee with legal liability training will ensure that all employees in your workplace are informed of their responsibilities to uphold the health and safety regulations in the OHS Act 85.

EMCARE Legal Liability Course:

EMCARE is a health and safety training facility that is dedicated to providing training that will ensure employee, employer, and visitor safety in every workplace. One of the important EMCARE health and safety training courses for workplace safety is the Legal Liability course.

The EMCARE Legal Liability course covers the theoretical information in the South African legal framework and occupational health and safety act liabilities in a practical way. Any employee who receives legal liability training from EMCARE will be able to make qualified decisions when acting or representing the employer. The employee will also have a full understanding of the liabilities that pertain to the scope of work and appointments within their workplace.

This is a list of what the EMCARE Legal Liability course will cover.

1. Legislative framework.
2. The different types of LAW.
3. Occupational Health and Safety statutory requirements.
4. Employer and employee key duties.
5. Liability with the law, including the criminal and civil implications on the employer.
6. The reasonable man test.
7. Vicarious Liability and Section 37(2) Agreements.
8. Regulatory requirements pertaining to organisational.
9. Case study.

EMCARE provides a Legal Liability course that is invaluable to any industry. Any employee in a management, supervisor, SHEQ coordinator, health and safety representative, and construction safety officer position is recommended to do a Legal Liability course. The EMCARE Legal Liability training that is pertinent for these positions, which span across numerous industries, demonstrates the importance of this training for any workplace.

Benefits of Choosing EMCARE Legal Liability Course:

With so many Legal Liability courses available, we have outlined the benefits of choosing EMCARE for your legal liability training.

Easily Accessible:

Our Legal Liability course is available at all of the EMCARE branches. You can find EMCARE branches located in Johannesburg, Polokwane, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Hoedspruit, and Cape Town. We have branches located all over South Africa so that our health and safety training courses are easily accessible.

We also offer our Legal Liability course to be trained at your business facility for groups of ten or more.

Minimal Pre-requisites:

All EMCARE health and safety training courses, like the Legal Liability course, have minimal pre-requisites for admission. If you are entering the course as an individual, you simply need proficiency in English to have access to the course. If you are entering the EMCARE legal liability course as a group of ten or more, you can request local language instructors.

Quick to Complete:

The EMCARE Legal Liability course has a duration of one day, which means that you can gain all the relevant knowledge and skills quickly and without too much disruption to your workweek. We ensure that our course duration provides you with all the practical and theoretical information without taking away too much of your time.

Experienced Trainers:

Emcare strives to provide high-quality legal compliance training. This is why for our Legal Liability course, and all our other health and safety training courses, we provide only the best trainers.

All EMCARE trainers are fully qualified, have a minimum of 1000 hours of work experience, and are trained as course facilitators. You will only receive the highest standard of training at EMCARE as a result of our excellent trainers who are dedicated to health and safety training.

Two Year Certificate Validity:

On completion of the EMCARE Legal Liability course, you will receive an accredited certificate. This certificate has a two-year validity. The purpose of the two-year validity period is to ensure that every two years you do a refresher course to ensure that you are constantly up-to-date with any changes or new legislations.

Accredited:

The Legal Liability course, and every other EMCARE health and safety training course, are fully accredited and affiliated with all governmental and regulatory bodies. These include CETA, Saiosh, Fire Fit, EduCert, Department of Labour, SAQA, TLD Trust, ISASA, LGSETA, and HWSETA.

Affordable:

Emcare provides a Legal Liability course that is affordable to ensure that every business and employee can have access to high-quality legal liability training no matter their budget.

Course Schedules:

We make it simple to find a time and date that works for you with our constantly updated course schedules. You can simply select an EMCARE branch and the Legal Liability course and you will find all the available dates to partake in this training.

About EMCARE Health and Safety Training:

The EMCARE Legal Liability Course falls within the broad category of EMCARE health and safety training.

Emcare offers a wide range of health and safety training courses, such as the EMCARE Health and Safety Induction course, the Health and Safety Supervisors course, and the Accident Incident Investigation course. We cover every important aspect of health and safety training in our various courses to ensure that you are equipped with all relevant knowledge and skills for safety in your workplace.

Emcare health and safety training courses are all accredited and are offered by highly trained professionals. This is to provide you with confidence in your knowledge and skills gained from your EMCARE health and safety training course.

Allow your business and employees to benefit from the EMCARE Legal Liability course within our health and safety training.