How I Use the Health and Safety Training Template with Customers in Pilla
Training is the control that looks fine on paper and falls apart in practice. I've reviewed health and safety management systems in hundreds of businesses, and the pattern is usually the same: there's a training matrix somewhere, a few certificates in a folder, and a vague promise that refresher training happens annually. Then you ask a team member when they last had manual handling training and they can't remember. The matrix says 2022.
The gap is rarely the policy itself. It's the gap between what's written down and what actually gets scheduled, delivered, and followed up. That's what this article is for. I'll walk you through what your training policy needs to cover, give you a ready-made template you can edit for your own operation, and explain the bits that actually matter when an HSE inspector asks to see your training records.
Key Takeaways
- What is health and safety training in health and safety? A training policy sets out how your organisation identifies training needs, delivers training, records it on a training matrix, and monitors that it's actually working. It covers induction, refresher training, fire safety, and employee responsibilities
- Why do you need a health and safety training policy? Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires employers to provide adequate training so employees are competent to do their work safely. An HSE inspector will ask to see your training matrix and evidence that training is current
- How do you set it up in Pilla? Use the knowledge hub template below, edit it to match your operation, and share it with your team through the app so everyone has access and you can track who's read it
- How do you automate the follow-up? Set up Poppi to chase staff who haven't acknowledged the policy and flag when it's due for review
Article Content
Understanding What's Required of You
Health and safety training is one of the fundamental duties on every employer. Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires you to provide adequate information, instruction, training, and supervision so that your employees are competent to do their work safely. The key word is "competent." It's not enough to hand someone a manual and hope for the best. You need to make sure they have the knowledge and skills to work without putting themselves or anyone else at risk.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 add more detail. Regulation 13 says training must be provided on recruitment, when employees are exposed to new or increased risks (because of a transfer, change of responsibility, new equipment, or new systems of work), and it must be repeated periodically where appropriate. That last bit is the one most businesses miss. Training isn't a one-off event at induction. It's an ongoing commitment that needs refreshing.
There are two parts to getting this right: the system and the culture. The system is your training matrix, your records, your process for identifying needs and scheduling delivery. The culture is whether your managers actually treat training as a priority or quietly cancel it when they're short-staffed on a Friday afternoon. I've lost count of the number of businesses I've worked with where the matrix was immaculate but the last three scheduled sessions had been postponed.
An HSE inspector will ask to see your training records. They'll want to see a matrix that shows what training each role requires, who has completed it, and when refreshers are due. They'll also want to see that you're monitoring whether training is effective, not just ticking a box that says "attended." If there's been an incident and the person involved hadn't received the relevant training, or their training had lapsed, that's a serious finding.
From my experience running a health and safety consultancy, the businesses that get training right are the ones that build it into their normal operations. It's in the rota. It's in the budget. It's not treated as an interruption to the real work.
Setting It Up as a Knowledge Hub Entry
I've built a health and safety training template in Pilla covering training arrangements, the training matrix, fire safety training, employee responsibilities, in-house training, and monitoring effectiveness. It gives you a structured starting point, but you should edit it to reflect how your operation actually works.
In the knowledge hub, create a new entry and tag it with "Health and Safety System". Use the same tag across all of your health and safety policies so they are grouped together and Poppi can track them as a set. Assign the entry to all teams so that everyone in the business can access it.
The template is designed to be edited, not just filed. Read through every section. Where it says something generic, replace it with what actually happens in your business. If you use a specific external training provider, name them. If your responsible person for training is the operations manager, say so. An HSE inspector wants to see that your policy reflects your operation, not that you've copied a generic document.
4. Health and Safety Training
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 – Section 2
Company Name is aware of the need to make provision for adequate training in order that employees are competent to discharge their health and safety responsibilities, undertake the work asked of them and have knowledge of essential hygiene practices for the safe delivery of our services.
Company Name will manage health & safety by following these safety arrangements.
Company Name to make resources available so suitable and sufficient training can be arranged for staff.
*Responsible persons to identify and arrange formal training like level 3 food safety training and deliver the training to employees in keeping with a complaint time period.
Arrangements will be made where necessary, to train staff in the use of firefighting equipment and its proper use and maintenance.
All employees are required to assist and co-operate with Company Name in any arrangements made for their training requirements.
*Responsible Persons will maintain a record of all training that is undertaken. Training records will be maintained on the company training matrix.
The training needs of employees will be continually monitored in relation to business activities, including changes to legislation, introduction of new technology or equipment and work methods, etc.
The Company's training programme will utilise both in-house and external training facilities. Certificates of attendance/competence will be issued where appropriate.
Responsible Persons to monitor the training provided, to ensure its effectiveness and to identify the requirement for further training or refreshing of skills.
Information and Communications (Consultation)
Consultation will be carried out in accordance with statutory requirements. The provision of Information and communication to employees will be carried out using a number of different procedures:
Senior Health and Safety Management Meetings
Health and Safety Training
Induction training
One-to-one surgeries
Regular health and safety meetings
Alerts, Bulletins and Communications
Safety information sheets
Inhouse training (see below)
All consultations and communication of health & safety, food safety or fire safety matters will always be documented. Detailing topic discussed, content of information and a record of attendance.
Inhouse training
All operatives employed will attend 'Safety training' meetings. The meetings will be held on an as-and-when required basis and last approximately 15 minutes. The meetings will be conducted by senior management, or the person tasked with delivering the training.
The topic for each talk will be selected by senior management or be in the form of a company produced Alert, Bulletin or Communication which will be designed to keep all employees informed of key topics and information relevant to the work we carry put.
The safety training meeting records will be subject to audit in accordance with our health and safety performance measurement procedures.
This is a preview of the template. In Pilla, you can edit this to match your business.
What I'd want to see when reviewing this:
The training arrangements section is the backbone of the whole policy. I'd want to see that you've committed to making resources available for training, that means time, budget, and the right people to deliver it. The responsible persons need to be named (or at least their roles identified) so it's clear who identifies training needs and who arranges delivery. Too many policies say "training will be provided" without saying by whom or how.
The training matrix is what ties it all together. It should show every employee, what training they've completed, the date, and when refresher training is due. If you can show an HSE inspector a current matrix with no gaps, you're in a strong position. If the matrix hasn't been updated in six months, that tells its own story.
Fire safety training gets its own mention in the template because it's a specific legal requirement. Not everyone needs to be trained in firefighting equipment, but your fire risk assessment should tell you who does. Make sure that's reflected in what you write here.
Common mistakes I see:
The most common problem is treating training as a one-time event. The template says training needs will be "continually monitored," but in practice I see businesses where the matrix shows initial training from three years ago and nothing since. Skills fade. Regulations change. New equipment gets introduced. If your refresher schedule has gaps, fill them.
Record keeping is the second issue. Training that isn't recorded didn't happen, as far as an inspector is concerned. The template covers maintaining records on the company training matrix, but I regularly find businesses where training has been delivered and nobody wrote it down. Certificates get lost. Attendance sheets get binned. Build the habit of recording training immediately after it happens.
The third mistake is not monitoring whether training is working. The template says responsible persons should "monitor the training provided to ensure its effectiveness." In practice, that means observing staff after training to check they're applying what they learned. If someone has had manual handling training but is still lifting boxes with a rounded back, the training hasn't worked and you need to address it. Delivering training and checking competence are two different things.
Automate the Follow-Up with Poppi
Writing the policy is one thing. Making sure your team has actually read it is another. Poppi can handle the chasing so you don't have to.
If you mark the knowledge hub entry as mandatory, Poppi will track who's read it and who hasn't. You can set up automations to chase staff who are behind, notify managers when someone completes the policy, and get a regular report showing where the gaps are.
Here are three automations I'd set up for any knowledge hub policy:
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Overdue training reminders
Automatically chase team members who have mandatory policies they haven't read yet. Poppi sends the reminder so you don't have to.
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Video completion alerts
Get notified when a team member finishes reading or watching a policy, so you can track progress without chasing.
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.
Training gap analysis
Get a regular AI report showing which team members are behind on mandatory policies and where the gaps are across your team.
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.