Sixteen Hours Behind a Desk: Italy's Workplace Safety Law Turns Training Into a Compliance Business

Italian training providers are stepping up their promotion of workplace safety courses under Legislative Decree 81/08 and the 2025 State-Regions Agreement, pitching a menu of mandatory instruction that runs from four-hour sessions for ordinary staff to sixteen-hour programmes for employers.

One of them, ANFOS Servizi, is highlighting the obligations that fall on both employers and workers, alongside a course catalogue that stretches from general grounding for managers to specialised modules tailored to particular sectors and hazards.

Hours That Vary by Role and Sector

At the top of the list sits a 16-hour course for employers, with a supplementary 6-hour module for construction sites. Where an employer takes on the duties of the workplace prevention and protection service directly — the role known in Italy as the DDL-RSPP — an 8-hour basic module applies instead.

Sector-specific add-ons follow. Agriculture, construction, and chemicals and petrochemicals each carry 16 hours, while the fishing sector is set at 12. An 8-hour DDL-RSPP update covers the refresher training the rules require.

For employees, the programme provides a general 4-hour course. ANFOS Servizi describes the periodic refresher certificate for workers as essential to staying compliant with the law. Its range spans training for medium risk levels and refreshers covering low, medium and high-risk areas.

Regional Courses and Technical Certificates

The offerings are aimed at businesses across different parts of the country. In Castiglione Olona, Lombardy, ANFOS Servizi advertises mandatory employer courses, including training for the thickness planer operator certificate under D.Lgs. 81/2008, covering the theory behind safety requirements, operating procedures and prevention. Passing a final examination is a condition of obtaining the certificate.

Other sector-specific courses concern the manufacture of linen and underwear in San Giorgio a Cremano, Campania, and the running of swimming pools and swimming centres in Codevigo, Veneto, where accident prevention and risk management take centre stage.

Pool operators in Brovello Carpugnino, Piedmont, can take a 16-hour employer course by e-learning with an integrated final exam. In Colli a Volturno, Molise, a 16-hour course is aimed at employers in fishing, with the goal of ensuring a safe working environment.

The provider also runs specialised modules for work in confined spaces, addressing emergency procedures, protective clothing and accident prevention, as well as courses for the education sector focused on rights and duties. For live electrical work, it offers qualification courses at the PES, PAV and PEI levels.

Electrical Qualifications and a Wider Set of Checks

Qualifications for electrical specialists are also being pushed from the institutional side. Italy's national workplace injury insurer, INAIL, devotes an information sheet to the minimum training requirements for the PES and PAV levels in low-voltage work under standard CEI 11-27:2025. The document points to the general duties of information, instruction and training under D.Lgs. 81/2008 and stresses that no work may be assigned to personnel without adequate preparation.

PMI Servizi, another provider, is likewise advertising training built around the agreement's requirements. Its programme in San Giacomo Vercellese includes HACCP courses, virtual classrooms, courses for safety officers and trainers, and renewal of licences for forklifts, cranes, excavators and agricultural machinery.

In Gambettola, Emilia-Romagna, PMI Servizi pairs similar safety courses with a reminder about the need for health checks where workers are exposed to fine particulate matter.

Because of the risk of serious respiratory and chronic illness, the provider says medical examinations should take place before hiring, at regular intervals during employment and when the employment relationship ends.