Italy Sets 16-Hour Safety Course for Employers, Adds Six-Hour Site Module
Published on 10/18/2026 at 20:31 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Protective gear that appears for the morning briefing photo and disappears by lunchtime is a familiar failure mode on construction sites. Indonesia has made the practice illegal on paper: Law UU No. 1/1970 on occupational safety and Regulation Permen PUPR No. 10/2021 on construction safety management systems both require personal protective equipment (PPE) to be worn. Reports from the field nonetheless describe crews donning it for documentation shots at the daily briefing and shedding it later — conduct that breaches prescribed safety procedures and leaves workers exposed to serious risk.
That gap between rule and routine runs through the wider debate over how workplaces handle hazard prevention, from the legal hierarchy of controls to the paperwork that proves compliance.
PPE only works when it is backed by a proper assessment of the hazards it is meant to control — and that assessment is where many employers fall short. A free toolkit gives you 41 ready-to-use templates and checklists, covering everything from manual handling to lone working, so the risks on your site are documented and defensible. Download the free Risk Assessment Toolkit
PPE Comes Last, Not First
Under employers' duty of care, suitable protective measures must be taken wherever hazards exist. General occupational safety principles apply a rule of precedence: personal protective equipment is the measure of last resort, brought in only when technical or organisational arrangements cannot sufficiently eliminate or reduce the risk.
Complex hazards on construction sites and in industrial plants demand structured prevention that goes beyond written requirements and holds up in daily work.
What Italian Law Requires on Paper
Transparent, accessible documentation underpins lawful operations. Italy's framework safety law (D.Lgs. 81/08) requires key records to be kept current and available for inspection — in particular the general risk assessment document (DVR), the site-specific safety plan (POS) and the accident register.
Work in confined spaces carries its own obligation: a separate risk assessment to pinpoint hazards, define preventive measures and secure legal compliance.
Training hours are fixed with equal precision under Italy's 2025 State-Regions Agreement. Employers face a 16-hour course, plus a six-hour construction-site module. The base module for employers who personally carry out prevention and protection service duties (DDL-RSPP) runs eight hours. Sector-specific add-ons of 16 hours each apply in construction, the chemical and petrochemical industry, and agriculture; fishing requires 12 hours, and periodic refresher training is set at eight hours.
Germany Puts the Assessment First
German rules shift the emphasis upstream. The Ordinance on Industrial Safety and Health and the Hazardous Substances Ordinance require a risk assessment before work equipment, machinery and installations such as biogas plants are used. Specialists stress that the process should begin before equipment is even selected and procured, so that safety-relevant risks are ruled out early.
Rented equipment brings its own trap. Where technical devices are leased, the parties must settle in advance who carries the operator's obligations — the lessor or the lessee. A clear contractual provision closes safety gaps and ensures statutory inspection and maintenance duties are met without interruption.
When an incident happens, the first question inspectors ask is whether the risk assessment existed and was up to date. Over 37,000 UK businesses use this free toolkit to keep their safety documentation inspection-ready — with templates, checklists and training material you can put to work the same day. Get the free Health & Safety Toolkit
