Compliance with occupational health and safety rules in any company should always be in the first place. Labor law requires the employer to provide each employee with appropriate working conditions to protect health and life. The establishment of an OHS service is mandatory in some workplaces.

The legislator requires that health and safety rules are observed in every workplace in our country, regardless of the number of people employed. In the case of companies that have more than 100 employees, the employer is obliged to establish an occupational health and safety service performing advisory and control functions in the field of occupational health and safety.

An employer employing up to 100 employees entrusts the performance of OHS service tasks to an employee employed at another job. An employer who has completed the training necessary to perform the tasks of the OHS service may perform the tasks of this service himself if:

• employs up to 10 employees, or
• employs up to 50 employees and is classified to a group of activities for which no higher than the third risk category within the meaning of the provisions on social insurance for accidents at work and occupational diseases has been established.

In the case of companies employing up to 100 employees, OHS tasks are usually entrusted to one selected employee. His duty is to ensure compliance with the rules guaranteeing safe work and to respond to any type of events violating health and safety or that may lead to dangerous situations in this area in the company.

Performing tasks related to maintaining OHS in the workplace requires appropriate qualifications and experience. Not every employee can occupy this position unless they undergo appropriate training. However, the employer has the option of choosing a person from outside the group of employees for this position – this is clearly stated in Article 23711 §2 of the Labour Code.

According to the above provision – in the absence of competent employees – it may entrust the performance of the tasks of the OHS service to specialists from outside the workplace. An employee of the OHS service and an employee employed in other work who has been entrusted with the performance of the tasks of this service, as well as a specialist from outside the workplace should meet the qualification requirements necessary to perform the tasks of the service and complete training in the field of occupational health and safety for employees of this service.

The employer, deciding to choose a specialist from outside his company, must remember that it can not be any person. First of all, the employer must demonstrate that none of his employees can be such a specialist – this is particularly important during a possible inspection of the workplace by the relevant administrative authorities or PIP. The justification for choosing an OHS specialist from outside the group of employees may be, for example, that none of the employees has either adequate knowledge or experience in the field of maintaining and performing tasks related to occupational health and safety in the company.

At this point, it should be pointed out that the wording of Article 7(3) of the Council Directive of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work (89/391/EEC) shows that if an undertaking does not have adequate resources to organise protective and preventive measures against risks, it should use the services of external entities. Article 7(3) of the Directive therefore lays down an obligation to have recourse to qualified external services, but only if the undertaking’s resources are insufficient. The above also applies to the selection of people for the position of OHS specialist – if none of the employees is suitable to perform this duty, the employer must find a suitable person from outside his company.

The position of an OHS specialist may be taken by a person who:

• has a university degree or specialty in occupational health and safety, or
• has postgraduate studies in the field of OHS and at least 1 year of work experience in the OHS service.

For senior OHS professionals, the required internship period is higher at 3 years. On the other hand, the chief health and safety specialist is expected to have at least 5 years of service experience.

It turns out that the name of the field of study does not play a significant role in classifying a person for the position of a health and safety specialist. According to the courts, it is more important here what subjects related to the application of OHS and in what number were carried out during studies. It is therefore possible that an external OHS specialist will be a person with higher education, which seemingly has nothing to do with the principles of safe and hygienic work.

If a person from outside the company is selected for the position of OHS specialist, he or she should be employed on the basis of an appropriate contract. It turns out that an employment contract is not absolutely necessary in this case. A specialist may also perform his duties on the basis of a mandate contract. It is also permissible to employ a OHS specialist under a B2B contract, i.e. on the basis of business activity performed by such a person.

Regardless of the type of contract concluded with an OHS specialist, it should precisely specify the scope of duties of such a person. Detailed competences of the OHS service can be found in the provisions of the Regulation of the Council of Ministers on the occupational health and safety service of 2 September 1997. Due to the extensive catalogue of cases dealt with by specialists, we will not publish it here.

A contract with a health and safety specialist can be both a fixed-term and indefinite contract. At least the usual written form is required, although theoretically the law does not prohibit the employment of a specialist by using the oral form (however, it would be too difficult to prove and problematic in terms of paying social security contributions, health insurance contributions and income tax advances).

Source: https://poradnikprzedsiebiorcy.pl/-wymagania-jakie-musi-spelniac-specjalista-bhp-spoza-zakladu-pracy

Supported by Norway through Norway Grants 2014-2021, in the frame of the Programme “Social Dialogue – Decent Work”.