Health and safety training for staff who do not read English well: what the law expects and how to do it

What the law says

• Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 2. Every employer must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees. Section 2(2)(c) spells out one part of that duty: the provision of such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure their health and safety at work. Read section 2 on legislation.gov.uk.
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 13. Headed Capabilities and training, it says the employer must take into account each employee's capabilities as regards health and safety when giving them tasks, and must provide adequate health and safety training on recruitment, and again when they are exposed to new or increased risks, such as a new job, new equipment or a new system of work. The training must be repeated periodically where appropriate and adapted to new or changed risks. A worker who cannot follow the training has not been given adequate training. Read regulation 13 on legislation.gov.uk.
• The HSE on migrant workers. The HSE's migrant workers guidance says employers must make sure their workers understand the information and training they are given, in a language they can understand if needed, and must take account of workers who may not be used to UK ways of working. Read the HSE migrant workers page.

Put together, the duty is not to run a course. It is to make sure each worker ends up understanding the risks of their job and how to work safely. If a worker does not read English well, training in English does not do that, and an inspector or a court will ask what you did instead.

How many people this affects

The 2021 Census for England and Wales asked everyone aged 3 and over about their main language and, for those whose main language was not English (or Welsh in Wales), how well they spoke English. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that about 1.0 million people could not speak English well or could not speak it at all. The largest main languages other than English were Polish (612,000 people), Romanian (472,000), Punjabi (291,000) and Urdu (270,000). Read the ONS language bulletin.

Those four languages, with Welsh, are the five Lift College prepares CPD courses in. They are also the languages employers in warehousing, food production, construction, cleaning, hospitality and care ask us about most. Speaking English for everyday work and reading a 3 hour course in English are different things: a worker who manages a shift in English may still miss the detail in a written module on COSHH or manual handling.

The cost of getting this wrong is not only legal. Workers who did not understand their training are the ones who are hurt, and the ones who hurt other people, so the business pays in lost time, insurance and reputation as well as in enforcement.

What counts as training workers can understand

The HSE does not prescribe one method. What matters is that the worker understood, and that you can show it. The approaches below work together, and the more of them you use, the stronger your position.

• Plain English. Short sentences, everyday words, one idea at a time. This helps every worker, not only those with a different first language, and it is the baseline for everything else.
• Pictures and demonstrations. Safety signs, photographs of the actual equipment, and a supervisor showing the task on site. Demonstrations are the only way to teach a physical skill such as a lift or a hoist, whatever language the worker speaks.
• A translated course. A full course in the worker's own language, with the knowledge checks in that language too, so the worker learns the facts without guessing at the words. It is the most direct way to meet the duty for the knowledge part of training, and the certificate shows the course was completed.
• A bilingual supervisor or colleague. Someone who speaks both languages can run the site induction, answer questions and translate a toolbox talk. Make sure they know the subject as well as the language, and record who did the translating.
• Checking understanding. Ask the worker to explain the task back, or to show you. A test at the end of a course is one check; a supervisor watching the first shift is another.
• Keeping records that the worker understood. For each worker, record the course, the language, the date, the test result, who checked understanding at work and how. If a worker signs a form, make sure the form is in a language they can read, or the signature proves nothing.

A simple approach that works

Give every worker the course in a language they read, with the test. Then have a supervisor run the site induction and demonstrate the equipment, using a bilingual colleague where needed. Record both. That covers the knowledge, the practice and the proof.

Where to get courses in other languages

Lift College. Open a free organisation account and order 10 or more places on any CPD course. Tell us the languages you need and we prepare the course text and knowledge checks in Polish, Romanian, Punjabi, Urdu or Welsh within 1 working day of your order. The final test and the certificate stay in the English course name, so the certificate is the one every employer recognises. Every course is £16.99 a place on an organisation account, with the first place free, and you can pay by card or by invoice with your PO. Each worker gets their own login, studies on a phone, and gets a CPD certificate issued by Lift College the same day they pass, with a unique number and a verification link. Read more on our courses in other languages page, or ask for a quote.

Other providers. Some providers offer courses that have been machine translated, and mark the translation as assistive only, with the English version as the one that counts. That can help a worker follow along, but check whether the knowledge checks are translated too, whether the provider stands behind the translated text, and what the certificate records. Ask the same questions of any provider, including us.

The six courses multilingual workforces need most often

These are the courses employers with multilingual teams order most, with the learning hours shown on each course page. Any CPD course can be prepared in the five languages; these six are where to start.

On an organisation account every course is the same price a place, whichever language it is prepared in. Browse all health and safety courses to add the others your risk assessment calls for.

Ready to start? Open a free organisation account, order 10 or more places on Health and Safety Training and tell us the languages you need.