5.2 Employer & Employee Duties

5.2 Employer & Employee Duties

Quick Answer: Employers (in the spirit of HSWA 1974) must secure so far as is reasonably practicable safe plant and systems, safe handling of substances, information, instruction, training and supervision, a safe workplace with safe access, and welfare. Employees must take reasonable care, cooperate, and not misuse safety equipment. With five or more employees, the organisation needs a written health and safety policy. Managers deliver these duties daily for their teams.

Criminal and civil law explain what happens when things go wrong. This section explains the positive duties that exist before anything goes wrong. Managing Safely expects you to name the main employer and employee duties in plain language and to apply them to warehouse, office, construction, and industrial scenarios.

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (HSWA) — spirit, not statute-quoting

HSWA is the cornerstone of UK workplace health and safety criminal law. Managing Safely does not require you to recite section numbers for every answer. It does require you to know the spirit of the general duties: employers must protect people affected by their undertaking so far as is reasonably practicable, and employees must play their part.

"Reasonably practicable" balances risk against the time, trouble, and cost of further control — a theme you also meet under controlling risks. Duties are goal-setting: they describe outcomes (safe systems, competent people) rather than every detailed method. Supporting regulations add specific standards (for example risk assessment, work equipment, substances).

Employer-side duties (core Managing Safely list)

Think of the employer duty package as five practical pillars plus the overarching duty of care to employees and others affected (contractors, visitors, public — as far as the undertaking affects them).

1. Safe plant and systems of work

Plant means machinery, equipment, and similar workplace kit. Systems of work means the planned way jobs are done — method, sequence, isolation, permits, staffing levels.

Manager translation:

• Keep equipment maintained and suitable for the task
• Do not tolerate missing guards, improvised tools, or "temporary" unsafe methods that become permanent
• Design tasks so the safe way is the practical way
• Use safe systems of work and permits where residual risk is high

2. Safe use, handling, storage, and transport of articles and substances

Chemicals, dusts, loads, gas cylinders, and materials all create risk if poorly controlled.

Manager translation:

• Correct containers, labelling, and storage
• Follow COSHH-style thinking for hazardous substances (identify, assess, control, monitor, review)
• Plan manual handling and workplace transport so people and loads move safely
• Segregate incompatibles and control spills

3. Information, instruction, training, and supervision

People cannot follow rules they have never been told, trained on, or coached to apply under pressure.

Exam trap: assuming a signed induction form alone proves lifelong competence. Supervision and refreshers matter when work or people change.

4. Safe place of work with safe access and egress

The workplace itself must be safe to occupy and to enter/leave — floors, lighting, traffic routes, fire exits, scaffolds, walkways, lighting of yards, winter grit arrangements, and so on.

Manager translation:

• Keep routes clear; protect edges; maintain lighting
• Separate vehicles and pedestrians where needed
• Ensure emergency exits are unlocked and unobstructed during occupancy
• Fix structural and environmental defects that create slips, trips, falls, or collisions

5. Adequate welfare facilities

Welfare is part of health and safety, not a luxury. Typical expectations include toilets, washing facilities, drinking water, rest areas, and changing facilities where the work requires them.

Manager translation:

• Facilities clean, accessible, and sufficient for headcount and shifts
• Special attention for outdoor, dirty, or remote work
• Welfare failures damage health, dignity, and willingness to report other risks

Employer duties at a glance

These duties extend, so far as is reasonably practicable, to protecting others affected by the work — not only payroll employees. Contractors, visitors, delivery drivers, and the public feature heavily in exam scenarios.

Employee duties

Employees are not passive. HSWA-style employee duties taught on the course cluster into three practical obligations:

1. Take reasonable care of yourself and others who may be affected by your acts or omissions

• Follow the safe method; do not create risk for colleagues through horseplay, rushing, or ignoring defects
• Report hazards and near misses
• Use controls that are provided and workable

2. Cooperate with the employer on health and safety requirements

• Attend training
• Follow site rules, permits, and induction requirements
• Wear required PPE that is suitable and provided
• Support investigations and monitoring activities honestly

3. Do not intentionally or recklessly interfere with or misuse anything provided for health, safety, or welfare

Classic failures: defeating interlocks, removing guards "to go faster," using fire extinguishers as door stops, blocking extraction, or vandalising welfare facilities.

Employees cannot be expected to invent an entire safe system when the employer has provided none — but they can be expected to use what is provided and not sabotage it.

Written health and safety policy (five or more employees)

UK law, as taught in Managing Safely, requires employers with five or more employees to have a written health and safety policy. Below five, a written policy is still good practice and often demanded by clients, but the classic exam threshold is five.

A usable policy typically has three parts:

1. Statement of intent — commitment signed at senior level (who is ultimately accountable).
2. Organisation — roles and responsibilities (directors, managers, supervisors, employees, specialists).
3. Arrangements — how duties are discharged in practice (risk assessment, training, first aid, fire, incident reporting, consultation, monitoring).

Policies that sit unread in a shared drive fail the spirit of the duty. Managers should know the parts that affect their teams and keep local arrangements alive (inductions, risk assessments, toolbox talks).

Related five-employee rule you already met: significant findings of risk assessments must be recorded when there are five or more employees. Policy writing and risk-assessment recording are different duties that share the same headcount trigger in course teaching.

Managers implement duties day-to-day

The employer is a legal person (company or organisation), but managers and supervisors make the duties real. Your control of planning, people, plant, and place means you are the delivery mechanism.

Manager action map

Scenario: warehouse team leader

A team leader notices agency pickers using a damaged pallet truck and shortcutting through a vehicle aisle. Employer duties are engaged: plant not safe, system of work failing, training/supervision gaps, workplace traffic not controlled. Employee duties are engaged if permanent staff defeat barriers or refuse to report damage. The manager’s job is to stop the unsafe practice, segregate traffic or re-route pedestrians, remove damaged plant, brief agency workers, and escalate resource needs — not to hope "common sense" will fix structural layout problems.

Scenario: office supervisor

Trailing cables, blocked fire exits during a refurbishment, and a new starter without DSE setup still engage HSWA-style duties. "Office work is low risk" is not a free pass; welfare, access/egress, and information still apply.

Common exam contrasts

Putting duties together without blame culture

Strong management holds both sides:

• Employer/manager side first when systems, plant, staffing, or training are inadequate — most serious harm is organisational.
• Employee side when individuals recklessly endanger others despite clear, workable controls.
• Fair accountability after incidents: investigate causes at immediate, underlying, and root levels (later chapter) rather than only blaming the last person who touched the control.

Bridge

Duties describe what must be achieved. When duties are breached, enforcing authorities can enter, investigate, and issue improvement or prohibition notices — or prosecute. That enforcement toolkit is the next section.