Office occupational safety: frequently asked questions

Every employer must ensure occupational safety support, but not everyone needs an appointed specialist. Businesses with up to 50 employees can instead use the Unternehmermodell under DGUV Regulation 2, Annex 3, with no lower limit: management trains itself and brings in expertise only when needed. From more than 50 employees, standard support with an appointed occupational safety specialist is mandatory (section 5 ASiG, DGUV Reg. 2 Annex 2).

In practice it gets uncomfortable from around 20 employees: from 21 employees you must set up an occupational safety committee (ASA), which the specialist sits on. That's exactly where we come in.

Book a 25-minute call. We'll tell you directly on the call what the BG specifically wants to see and what's missing on your side. Contract in no more than 5 working days, first walkthrough within 10 working days.

A missing appointment is not directly fineable: a fine of up to 25,000 euros under section 20 ASiG only follows once an enforceable order from the authority is ignored. The real risk is a different one anyway: if an accident happens and you can't produce a risk assessment, safety training or an appointment certificate, it comes down to the personal liability of management. The fine is the small part.

You pay a fixed monthly amount based on your number of employees and your region. No timesheets, no surprises at year-end, no renegotiation if an appointment runs long.

Our prices are listed openly on the pricing page. You don't need a quote or a sales call to see what your business costs. That's unusual in this industry, and it is exactly why we do it.

DGUV Reg. 2 Annex 2 specifies 0.5 hours per employee per year of basic support for support group III, of which at least 20 percent must go to the occupational safety specialist. We calculate 0.4 hours of basic support plus 0.2 hours of business-specific support, 0.6 hours per person per year in total. For 100 employees that's 60 specialist hours a year.

We disclose this calculation so you can actually compare quotes. With most providers you never learn the hourly basis your price is built on.

Included: appointment certificate, walkthroughs, building and maintaining the risk assessment, ASA participation, action tracking, client portal with complete document storage, an audit-proof DGUV Reg. 2 support record on demand, and the interface to the authorities.

Not included and priced separately: fire safety helper and first aider training (5 percent of your workforce each, the statutory quota), special risk assessments after a move or refurbishment, inspections under BetrSichV, extra ASA sessions beyond the quota. These also come at fixed prices, no open timesheets.

No, and that's the most common misconception. The occupational safety specialist (section 5 ASiG) and the occupational physician (section 3 ASiG) are two separate obligations, since 2026 each with a minimum quota of 20 percent of the basic support hours. If you already have an occupational physician, all good. If not, we arrange one from our partner network and register them correctly.

Yes, at no extra charge. Documents, the client portal and direct communication entirely in English. For international teams and startups this is usually the first question, which is why it's here and not in the small print.

You have a dedicated contact at Safety Club and a fixed specialist for your walkthroughs. The contract always runs directly with Safety Club, not with a brokered third party. That is what sets us apart from comparison portals: there, your contract is passed on and quality is a matter of luck.

At least one on-site walkthrough per year, plus the legally required ASA sessions. Since 1 January 2026 the revised DGUV Reg. 2 allows up to half of the support hours to be delivered by video or phone where documentation is clean. That's exactly the documentation we provide, so about half of our work runs digitally: coordination, documentation and advice remotely, so the on-site time stays for what really has to happen on site.

Every new client first gets a structured status check: what's in place, what's missing, what has to be caught up immediately. Incomplete handovers are the norm in this industry, not the exception. You get that from us in writing, so you know where you stand before we build anything new.

Everything in the client portal: risk assessment, walkthrough reports, records, open actions with owners and deadlines. No Excel versions by email, no searching your inbox.

Three things: the hours calculation for support group III was simplified to a per-capita factor, the specialist and the occupational physician must each take on at least 20 percent of the basic support (the previous workaround via the doctor no longer works), and the range of eligible professions for specialist training was widened. For you this mainly means: the specialist share can no longer be negotiated away.

Since May 2026, generally only from 50 employees. Between 20 and 49 only where special hazards exist, so usually not for a classic office. Important: a safety officer does not replace the occupational safety specialist: these are two different roles.

We work with a fixed term and a transparent notice period, no automatic lock-in. The term and the notice period are set out in the contract and we go through them openly in the initial call, before you sign.