A VBG questionnaire is in most cases the FGBU, the questionnaire for the psychological stress risk assessment that the VBG offers its members free of charge in an online tool. Alongside it there are the KiT workshop for small companies, the training questionnaire FB 6 office area and ZeBRA for temporary agency work. An office needs none of them by law, but it does need a documented result.
If you are looking for a questionnaire because a letter from the Berufsgenossenschaft has just arrived, you will find the five steps for a timely reply there. This article covers the questionnaires that are actually available on vbg.de.
Which questionnaires the VBG offers
The VBG provides four instruments that matter for office and administrative businesses: the FGBU on psychological stress, the Kurzanalyse im Team (KiT) workshop, the training questionnaires FB 0 to FB 33 and the temporary work questionnaire ZeBRA. Only two of them concern the risk assessment, one concerns safety training and one is meant exclusively for temporary employment agencies.
| Instrument | Purpose | For whom | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| FGBU | Psychological stress risk assessment | VBG members, recommended from 51 employees | Online tool or paper, free |
| KiT (Kurzanalyse im Team) | Psychological stress risk assessment | Companies with up to 50 employees | Moderated workshop, 6 to 12 people |
| FB 6 office area | Knowledge check for safety training | Office employees, originally temporary workers | 20 questions, fillable PDF |
| ZeBRA | Psychological stress from the leasing process | Temporary employment agencies | 35 questions in 12 fields of action |
No VBG questionnaire replaces the risk assessment itself. The risk assessment is the identification and evaluation of all hazards at a company's workplaces required by section 5 ArbSchG, and a questionnaire is only one of several tools for collecting part of it. How the whole assessment is structured is explained in risk assessment for office workstations.
The FGBU: questionnaire on psychological stress
The FGBU is the VBG questionnaire for the psychological stress risk assessment. It fully covers the design characteristics of the GDA recommendation, additionally asks about environmental factors and is distributed and evaluated through a free online tool. The VBG recommends it for companies with 51 or more employees, where workshops for every activity would take too much effort.
The FGBU covers the areas also named in the GDA guideline: work content, work organisation, social relationships and work environment, supplemented by social and emotional demands. Employees rate statements on a five-point scale from "does not apply at all" to "applies completely". What each area means in an office is explained in the article on psychological stress in the risk assessment.
The VBG online tool offers more than the questionnaire itself:
- Own questions: up to ten company-specific questions can be added.
- Home office module: an optional module with eight statements covers stress when working from home.
- Alternative checklist: instead of the FGBU you can choose the shorter checklist of the Unfallversicherung Bund und Bahn, which the VBG describes as less specific.
- Evaluation and export: the tool sends password-protected survey links, shows results anonymously on coloured scales and exports them as Excel or PDF, optionally linked to the VBG software GEDOKU.
- Repetition: the same survey can be repeated later to make changes visible.
The VBG does not state a fixed minimum number of responses on the online tool page. In practice: a group whose evaluation allows conclusions about individuals is not reported separately. Evaluating a department of four people on its own does not create anonymity.
Small offices: KiT workshop instead of a questionnaire
The Kurzanalyse im Team (KiT) is the VBG workshop procedure for assessing psychological stress and is aimed at companies with up to 50 employees. Six to twelve employees doing the same work analyse their stress factors with a moderator and propose measures straight away. There is no questionnaire involved.
KiT vs. FGBU is essentially a question of group size. A questionnaire hardly produces anonymous results in a team of ten, whereas a workshop delivers explanations and suggestions a survey never provides. The VBG supports this in two ways: a VBG work psychologist prepares, moderates and follows up the short analysis, or your own staff learn to moderate it in a three-day VBG seminar.
Small companies in the VBG entrepreneur model also complete the risk assessment through the DIAdrei portal, which is intended for companies with up to 50 employees. How the model works is described in the entrepreneur model under DGUV Regulation 2.
FB 6 office area: the knowledge check for safety training
Questionnaire FB 6 "Bürobereich" (office area) is a VBG training questionnaire with 20 questions on escape routes, ladders, screen work, lighting, sitting, electrical appliances, trips and first aid. It belongs to a series of 39 questionnaires developed for training temporary workers, but its content fits any office.
The current edition is version 2.2, dated 05/2022. Several answers to one question can be correct, and at the end there are fields for the signatures of the employee and the instructor and a note on whether oral follow-up training took place. There is also FB 0 "general topics" to support basic training, and some questionnaires exist in plain language. The VBG provides them as fillable PDFs; the former offline programme is no longer available.
Important for context: the VBG itself states that the questionnaires do not replace the personal training conversation. Safety training vs. knowledge check is a clear distinction: training under section 12 ArbSchG is the duty, FB 6 checks whether it got through. Under section 4 (1) DGUV Regulation 1, safety training must be repeated and documented at least once a year. The training deadline calculator works out when the next one is due, and the topics are listed in safety training in the office: how often and which topics?.
ZeBRA: only for temporary employment agencies
ZeBRA is the VBG temporary work questionnaire on psychological stress and resources in the employee leasing process. It captures stress that does not stem from the work at the client company but from the leasing itself, such as changing assignments. Version 2.0 comprises 35 questions in twelve fields of action and is aimed at temporary employment agencies.
For an office that uses temporary workers, ZeBRA is not the right tool. The hiring company assesses the stress arising from the work on its premises, the agency uses ZeBRA to assess the stress arising from the leasing process. Under section 12 (2) ArbSchG, workplace training is the hiring company's duty, and that is exactly what questionnaires FB 0 to FB 33 are designed for.
Which questionnaire fits your office
The choice depends mainly on the number of employees per activity group. Up to 50 employees, the KiT workshop is usually the better route; from 51 employees, the FGBU in the online tool. For safety training, FB 6 works as a knowledge check in any office. Only temporary employment agencies need ZeBRA.
| Office | Psychological stress | Safety training | Documentation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 employees, one activity group | 1 KiT workshop with all 12 | FB 6 after the annual training | Result and measures in the risk assessment |
| 35 employees, three activity groups | 3 KiT workshops, one per group | FB 6 at every training session | Result per activity group, measures with dates |
| 80 employees, several departments | FGBU in the online tool, feedback in workshops | FB 6, FB 0 for new starters if needed | Export from the tool, measures in GEDOKU or your own template |
Whether other records the VBG wants to see during an inspection are missing as well is shown in a few minutes by the VBG risk check.
What has to be documented after the questionnaire
A completed questionnaire is not yet a risk assessment. Under section 6 ArbSchG the documentation must contain the result of the assessment, the measures defined and the result of their review. The VBG inspector therefore does not ask for the answers, but for the measures that follow from them.
- Assess the result per activity. Read the evaluation by activity group and record which characteristics stand out and which do not. Standing out means action is needed, not that someone is to blame.
- Define measures. Record a concrete measure for every conspicuous item, with a responsible person and a date. Changes to the work itself take priority over appeals to employees.
- Add it to the risk assessment. Write result and measures into the same documentation as all other hazards, not into a loose annex.
- Inform employees. Share the aggregated results and the planned measures without disclosing evaluations of small groups.
- Check effectiveness. Set a date to check whether the measures worked, and repeat the same survey if needed.
For filing, the VBG offers the free software GEDOKU, an offline Windows application with a basic catalogue for screen and office work and sample companies. If you already use another template, you do not need GEDOKU: what matters is that result, measures and review sit in one place.
What a questionnaire does not do
A questionnaire collects data; it does not evaluate it or implement measures. Choosing the method, evaluating the results and deriving measures require expertise, and that is exactly the role of the occupational safety specialist under the ASiG and DGUV Regulation 2, together with the company doctor.
The most common mistake is a survey with no measures afterwards. If there is a works council or staff council, it must be involved before the survey, not afterwards.
Safety Club combines an occupational safety specialist on site with digital, audit-ready documentation for office and administrative businesses, where the result of the psychological risk assessment has its place too. If you want to know which procedure suits your office, get in touch briefly.
This article is general guidance and does not replace legal advice on individual cases. The current versions of the regulations and questionnaires mentioned and the interpretation of your accident insurance institution are authoritative.
