Anyone starting occupational safety in an office works through five steps in this order: appoint safety and occupational health support, produce the risk assessment, train the staff, organise first aid, document everything in writing. This is exactly the sequence an inspection by the employers' liability insurance association asks about, and it follows from the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The order is a chain of dependencies, not a suggestion. Start in the middle and you do the work twice: training without a risk assessment has no content, and documentation without the previous four steps documents nothing.
Step 1: Arrange support from a specialist and an occupational physician
Every business with at least one employee must appoint an occupational safety specialist and an occupational physician (sections 2 and 5 ASiG, DGUV Regulation 2). There is no lower threshold. Office and administrative businesses fall into the cheapest support group III, with 0.5 hours of basic support per employee per year for both roles combined.
This step comes first because it is the only one a business can complete without in-house expertise: appoint, record in writing, file. From then on there is someone at the table who supports steps 2 to 5 professionally. Responsibility still stays with the employer; the specialist advises (section 6 ASiG).
Three routes are open: employ your own specialist, commission an external one, or, up to 50 employees, use the Unternehmermodell under Annex 3 of DGUV Regulation 2. For an office with 12 or 35 employees, employing your own is not viable on the numbers: the hours needed are too few. Which option is legally suitable is covered in Does an office need an occupational safety specialist?.
The support-hours calculator works out the hours at your headcount and how they split between specialist and physician. At least 20 percent must fall to each side.
Step 2: Produce the risk assessment
The risk assessment under section 5 ArbSchG is the core of occupational safety and mandatory for every business regardless of size. It records the hazards at each workstation, derives measures and is documented in writing under section 6 ArbSchG. Without it, every further step lacks its substantive basis.
In an office the hazards are narrow and deep rather than broad. In practice the same six fields recur: screen work and ergonomics, lighting and indoor climate, traffic routes and trip hazards, electrical equipment, fire safety and escape routes, and mental stress. The last has long been an explicit mandatory element (section 5 paragraph 3 number 6 ArbSchG) and is the one most often missing: Mental stress in the risk assessment.
Two points are regularly overlooked. Remote workstations belong in the assessment even though the employer cannot enter the home. And a measure without a deadline and a later review is a statement of intent. What an assessment looks like for an office is shown in Risk assessment in the office; the workstations themselves in Setting up a screen workstation correctly.
Step 3: Train the staff
Under section 12 ArbSchG and section 4 DGUV Regulation 1, all employees must receive safety training: on recruitment, when their work area changes and at least annually thereafter. The training must relate to the specific workstation, take place during working hours and be evidenced with a date and signatures.
The content comes directly from step 2. Train before the risk assessment exists and you deliver a general talk, with no proof that staff were informed about the hazards of their own workstation.
Four points that are actually checked during an inspection:
- Completeness. Part-time staff, apprentices, interns and staff working from home must be trained too. For young people the training is repeated every six months.
- Evidence with signatures. An attendance list without date, topics and signatures is not evidence.
- New starters. Training happens before work begins, not at the next collective session in the autumn.
- Repetition when something changes. A relocation, new software, new equipment or an accident triggers training regardless of the annual cycle.
The training-interval calculator works out which deadlines fall due when; structure and record-keeping are covered in Safety training in the office.
Step 4: Organise first aid and fire safety
First aid and fire safety are the part of occupational safety with the clearest numbers. Under sections 24 to 26 DGUV Regulation 1, with 2 to 20 employees present one trained first aider is enough; above that, at least 5 percent of the employees present must be trained in administrative businesses. The training is refreshed every two years.
Three things must also be present and reachable: first-aid supplies under ASR A4.3, meaning kits within their expiry date, the notice with emergency numbers and named first aiders, and the logbook for minor injuries. For fire safety, ASR A2.2 generally treats 5 percent of those present as fire safety helpers, but at least one person.
For a site with 12 employees, one first aider is formally enough and two make sense, because holidays and illness create gaps. At 35 employees it is at least two first aiders and two fire safety helpers, at 80 employees four and four. First-aider training is usually paid for by the insurance association; the working time lost is not.
The exact figures come from the first-aider calculator and the first-aid kit calculator, the finished notice from the first-aid notice generator. Background: First aid in the office and Fire safety in the office.
Step 5: File the documentation ready for inspection
The fifth step creates no new duties; it makes the previous four provable. Legally, section 6 ArbSchG requires documentation of the risk assessment, the measures and their review. Practically, this step decides whether an inspection goes smoothly: whatever cannot be found counts as not existing.
Ready for inspection means five things: complete, dated, signed, findable and kept up to date. The folder should hold at least the appointments of specialist and physician, the risk assessment with its measures, the training records, the certificates of first aiders and fire safety helpers, the inspection records for electrical equipment under DGUV Regulation 3, above 20 employees the minutes of the safety committee, and from 50 employees the appointment of safety officers.
Paper or digital is legally open. Digital has one practical advantage: deadlines do not pass unnoticed, and nothing is lost when staff change. What matters is that the documentation belongs to the business rather than the provider. Support contracts differ markedly on that point.
All five steps as a 90-day plan: example with 12 employees
An office with 12 employees, one site, two floors, no records so far. Basic support comes to 12 times 0.5 hours, so 6.0 hours per year for specialist and physician combined. The initial effort is considerably higher, but it arises only once.
- Days 1 to 30, step 1: obtain and compare support offers, appoint specialist and physician in writing, agree how the hours are split, arrange a date for the walkthrough. In parallel, list all rooms, workstations and work equipment so the walkthrough does not start with an inventory.
- Days 31 to 60, steps 2 and 4: walkthrough, risk assessment for all workstation types including home working and mental stress, measures with owners and deadlines, signature from management. Nominate two first aiders and one fire safety helper, check the kits, produce the notice.
- Days 61 to 90, steps 3 and 5: initial training for all 12 employees based on the finished risk assessment, with signatures. Assemble the documentation and schedule the electrical inspection and training dates for the next twelve months. After that the business runs on an annual cycle.
At 35 employees it is mainly step 2 that gets longer, and one duty is added: the safety committee under section 11 ASiG, above 20 employees (safety officers under section 22 SGB VII only from 50). At 80 employees the Unternehmermodell is no longer permitted; it ends at 50, and safety officers must be appointed.
When something already exists: which step comes first
Most businesses start from fragments, not zero. A different order applies then, by risk:
- Support arrangement missing: step 1 immediately. Without it, the evidence an inspection asks for first is missing.
- Risk assessment older than three years, or after a relocation: update it rather than start again.
- Risk assessment without mental stress: add it. This is the single most common shortcoming in offices.
- Training happens but without records: catch up on the record-keeping. Minimal effort, large effect.
- Records exist but sit with three different people: step 5. Findability is the precondition for the other four steps counting at all.
The duties quick-check shows which duties apply at your headcount; for the whole stock, work through the office safety checklist.
Safety Club organises these five steps as a package for office and administrative businesses: an occupational safety specialist on site plus digital documentation ready for inspection. The process is set out under How it works; open points we clarify in an initial conversation.
This article is general guidance and does not replace legal advice on your individual case. What governs is the current version of the ArbSchG, ASiG and DGUV Regulations 1 and 2, together with how your employers' liability insurance association (Berufsgenossenschaft, BG) interprets it.
