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Every management team has a legal responsibility to ensure that their employees are kept safe. It is a critical factor that owners, shareholders and the board of directors are directly responsible for the safety of their employees, however, who within the organisation is it exactly that tells an employee to do a job? Short answer, his manager or supervisor. So in reality there is more than one person who can contribute towards an employee's serious injury or passing.

Here is the section out of the Occupational Health & Safety Act 85 of 1993, which speaks to the employer in terms of health and safety:

Section 8.1 in the OSH Act

"Every employer shall provide and maintain, as far as is reasonably practicable, a working environment that is safe and without risk to the health of his employees."

It goes on to explain that you need to remove hazards and risks, making sure plant and machinery are made safe, etc, but you get the point. 

Then section 8 in the act goes into detail for the exact way an employer needs to maintain health and safety for their employees in their workplaces.

To put it in a way everyone will understand, let's say an employee has been seriously injured or killed, and the employer is standing in front of a judge. Mr.Judge asks him, "According to Section 8 of the OSH Act, what did you do to make the workplace safe for the employee"

How the employer responds will have two outcomes:

 - The employer did everything they reasonably could to prevent harm to their employee. In which case, it is the employees negligence that got them into trouble.

- The employer did very little or nothing to prevent harm to their employee, In that case it's either off to jail, a massive fine, or both.

However, if it does come out in the court case that it was the supervisor or manager that directly instructed an employee to do work that is unsafe, then that person in management will be standing right next to the employer, taking the blame, if not all the blame.

That is why it is important to put your management team onto a safety training course like Executive Legal Liability. It will make them aware of the exact requirements of the law, what needs to happen, and what will happen should they drop the ball. In turn ensuring the company is maintaining a safe work environment and away from legal liability.

Business owners should know that according to Section 332 of the CRIMINAL PROCEDURE ACT 51 of 1977, the following persons may be prosecuted individually and jointly with the Company:  

CEO (Appointed 16(1)); 

Directors; Assistant CEO (Appointed 16(2)); 

Other Chief Officers Appointed (CFO, COO); 

Managers; Supervisors etc. 

and Responsible Employee or Operator.

For the business owner, it is the exact same thing, you need to arm yourself with the knowledge of what your liabilities are in terms of Health and Safety, and ensure that your management team is not instructing the employees incorrectly.

This is why we put our employees on Safety Induction training and our management team on Executive Legal Liability training. Deaths in the workplace is a real thing, this article on the World Health Organisation states that close to 2 million people die of work related injuries each year. 

https://www.who.int/news/item/16-09-2021-who-ilo-almost-2-million-people-die-from-work-related-causes-each-year

Think about it from an employer's point of view, your actions could lead to someone passing away, and in those 2 million cases, there is either an employer who did everything they could to prevent harm to the employee, or they're behind bars right now, completing their sentence of jail time along with the managers involved.

Click here to make booking for your team to attend an Executive Legal Liability course