Workplace injury at your company: what to do immediately, the injury log, the injury record, and when to report it to the labour inspectorate

A workplace injury has an unpleasant quality: it comes at a moment when no one is ready for it, and the outcome is decided within the first few minutes. While everyone is attending to the injured person, the things that will be needed a week later quietly disappear — the camera footage gets overwritten, someone tidies the machine back into working order, the witnesses “align their version” among themselves, and all that remains of the original situation is a memory.

Then comes the second wave: what to write down, who to call, by when to send the paperwork. On top of that, the rules changed on 1 January 2026 — the new Government Regulation No. 322/2025 Coll. now applies, and the report to the inspectorate is submitted electronically via a portal. We’ll go through both parts in turn: first what to do immediately on the scene, then what to do with it administratively.

What to do immediately after a workplace injury

People’s health first, forms only after that. But at the same time the clock is running for the evidence too — camera systems overwrite the loop, machines’ operating logs rotate, and within a few hours the witnesses’ memories converge into a single narrated story.

A sensible order of steps:

1. First aid and, depending on the condition, the emergency medical service. Nothing that follows takes precedence over this.
2. Stopping the source of danger — switching off the machine, disconnecting the power, closing off the area if another injury is likely.
3. Preventing unauthorised persons from entering the scene of the event.
4. Preserving the state of the scene until the causes are clarified. If something has to be moved to save a person or remove a further danger, document the original state beforehand where possible.
5. Photographs and video of the whole scene and the details — the position of the machine, the guards, the lighting, the floor, the PPE used. On top of that, secure the camera footage, the machine’s operating logs, the attendance records, and the work order — the kind of data that can be overwritten automatically.
6. Witnesses individually. Write down the names and, briefly, what each of them personally saw. A joint “fine-tuning of the version” destroys the value of the testimony.
7. Informing the person responsible for OHS and the company’s management.

The Labour Code (Act No. 262/2006 Coll., Section 105(1)) requires the employer to clarify the causes and circumstances of the injury with the participation of the employee, if their state of health allows it, of the witnesses, and of the trade union or the OHS representative. Simply taking a report from the injured person and copying it into a form therefore does not discharge this duty — clarification is a separate step.

If the circumstances suggest the influence of alcohol or another addictive substance, proceed according to the internal rules. The instruction to undergo the test is given by a senior employee designated in writing by the employer (Section 106(4)(i) of the Labour Code establishes the employee’s duty to submit to the test). Record the time, the result, the device used, the persons present, and any refusal to take the test.

Is it even a workplace injury?

Under Section 271k(1) of the Labour Code, a workplace injury is damage to health or death that occurred independently of the employee’s will through the short-term, sudden, and violent action of external influences while performing work tasks or in direct connection with them. An injury on the ordinary commute to and from work is not a workplace injury.

A fall from a ladder or an injury to the hands in a press is rarely disputed. A more complicated assessment arises with an injury:

• during a business trip,
• during a break for a meal and rest,
• while working from home,
• at a customer’s workplace,
• when using one’s own vehicle,
• during an activity carried out without an explicit instruction.

The verdict that “the employee brought it on themselves” does not belong at the start. Even a breach of the work procedure does not in itself mean it was not a workplace injury — it may be relevant to assessing liability and the extent of compensation for the harm (Section 270 of the Labour Code), but the event must first be properly clarified. Release from liability has statutory conditions and is decided only after the causes have been established, not in the heat of the first hour.

If you don’t yet know the length of the incapacity for work or the exact diagnosis, don’t wait to record the basic details. You can add to and update them later.

The injury log: even minor injuries are recorded

All injuries belong in the injury log — including those with no incapacity for work or with incapacity of at most three calendar days. Keeping the log is required by Section 105(2) of the Labour Code, and its content is governed by Government Regulation No. 322/2025 Coll. The form may be either paper or electronic.

The entry contains, in particular:

• the name of the affected employee,
• the date, time, and place of the injury,
• the activity being performed at the moment of the injury,
• the number of injured persons,
• the type of injury and the injured part of the body, if known,
• a factual description of how the injury occurred,
• the category, source, and cause of the injury,
• the names of the witnesses,
• the name and job position of the person who made the entry.

The difference between a usable entry and a worthless one lies in specifics. “The employee wasn’t paying attention” is not a description of events, it’s a judgement — and no one will get anything out of it during an investigation. A description looks different: where the person was standing, what task they were performing, whether the guard was in place, what the floor was contaminated with, what happened immediately before the injury. The same logic applies to all operational documentation — we went into it in more detail in the article OHS documentation for a company.

The employee may request a certified copy or an extract of the data on their injury from the injury log. At the same time, the injury log is not the same as the injury record sent to the authorities — these are two different documents with different fates.

When the injury log is enough and when you need a record

Since 1 January 2026, Government Regulation No. 322/2025 Coll. works with four situations:

A serious injury is one involving hospitalisation of more than five consecutive calendar days, or an injury for which such a long hospitalisation can be expected given the nature of the wound. That second half of the sentence matters more in practice — it doesn’t allow you to wait for the outcome, and the investigation starts right away.

A fatal workplace injury is damage to health from whose consequences the employee dies no later than one year after the injury. A record that has already been sent can therefore become outdated even after months; when the employee’s condition changes, it is updated.

When and how to report an injury to the labour inspectorate

A serious or fatal workplace injury is reported to the competent regional labour inspectorate without undue delay. Competence is determined by the place where the injury occurred — not by the company’s registered office. For a construction site in another region, that means a different inspectorate from the one the company is used to.

There is no universal “within 24 hours” deadline in the regulation. But at the same time, “without undue delay” does not mean waiting several days for the managing director to come back from holiday, for the insurer’s opinion, or for the internal investigation to finish. As soon as you have the basic information and the event falls into the serious or fatal category, submit the report — the details can be added later.

Since 2026, the report has been submitted electronically via the Labour Inspection Portal. The regulation envisages the portal as the route for reporting and does not provide for any other alternative (a data box, ordinary e-mail, or a letter) — if the portal were unavailable, check the inspectorate’s current instructions and document the course of your reporting, so that it is clear you acted without undue delay. The statutory representative logs in via electronic identity and can authorise another person in the portal — typically a qualified risk-prevention specialist or an external OHS technician. This is something not worth dealing with only on the day of the injury: discovering at six in the morning that no one has access to the portal is an unnecessary added complication.

For operations subject to state mining supervision, you proceed with the competent district mining authority instead of the labour inspectorate.

Who else the injury is reported to

The range of recipients depends on the severity and the circumstances:

• The trade union and the OHS representative — without undue delay, if they operate at the employer.
• The Czech Police — if the established circumstances suggest a criminal offence has been committed, and also in the case of a fatal workplace injury.
• The injured employee’s health insurance company — without delay in the case of a fatal workplace injury.
• The injured worker’s employer — where it concerns a posted, temporarily assigned, or agency employee. Both employers concerned record the event in their injury logs.

The last point is the source of the most common delay. On a construction site or in production, where a general contractor, two subcontracting firms, and agency workers all come together, the duties fragment and everyone silently waits to see who speaks up first. Clarify right away who the injured person’s actual employer is and at whose premises the event occurred. A related topic is the division of responsibilities between companies at a shared workplace, which we cover in the article OHS coordination on a construction site: when to arrange it and who does it.

The workplace injury record: the deadline is 15 working days

The injury record is drawn up in particular where the incapacity for work exceeded three calendar days or the employee died. It is sent to the labour inspectorate via the portal no later than 15 working days from the day the employer learned of the injury.

From there it takes on a life of its own:

• Signatures — the record is printed and signed, or recognised electronic signatures are used. The employer keeps the signed version for ten years (Section 6(2) of Government Regulation No. 322/2025 Coll.).
• A copy to the injured person without undue delay, and to the OHS representative and the trade union if they operate. In the case of a fatal injury, family members receive it.
• The signed record is not uploaded to the portal again — the version submitted goes to the portal, the signatures stay with the employer.
• A refusal to sign is no reason to miss the deadline. Record the refusal, the date, and the circumstances, allow the injured person to state their own position, and send the record on time.

The record is also sent to the employee’s health insurance company and, depending on the circumstances, to the Czech Police. For the settlement of the insurance claim, submit it to the insurer with which you hold the employer’s statutory liability insurance for damage caused by workplace injury and occupational disease.

What to put right after an injury

Sending the record does not end the duties — the employer adopts measures against a recurrence of the workplace injury (Section 105(5) of the Labour Code). This is where it becomes clear whether the investigation had a point or was just filling in boxes.

The measure should respond to the cause that was identified. Depending on the nature of the event, it is usually:

• repairing or taking the equipment out of service,
• adding a guard or an interlock,
• changing the work procedure,
• updating the risk assessment,
• supplementing or replacing personal protective equipment,
• targeted training of specific employees,
• verifying professional or medical fitness,
• an inspection of the electrical equipment or work device.

Each measure comes with a responsible person, a deadline, and a way of checking that it has been carried out. The all-purpose “the employees were instructed” will not fix a loose guard, a missing interlock, or a badly set-up shift organisation — and during an inspectorate check it comes across exactly as it looks. If the cause is related to the technical condition of the electrical equipment, it is also worth verifying that the inspections are still valid — we describe the connections in the article Labour inspectorate check.

When to bring in an external OHS provider and what they should deliver

It makes sense to bring in a qualified specialist as soon as possible in the case of a serious injury, a disputed course of events, an event at a workplace shared by several companies, and anywhere a machine, electrical equipment, a fall from height, or a vehicle plays a role. These are the situations where a single event easily turns into a dispute over liability.

The output should not end with a completed form. A sensible scope of work includes:

• checking that the injury is assigned to the correct category,
• a list of recipients and keeping track of the deadlines,
• documentation of the scene and materials from the witnesses,
• the entry in the injury log and preparation of the record,
• assistance with the submission via the portal,
• a proposal of specific corrective measures,
• a check of the materials for the insurer,
• a list of OHS documents that need to be updated.

The price depends on the severity, the travel to the scene, the number of witnesses, and the extent of the documentation. Have it defined in advance whether the offer covers only the form or also the investigation, the portal, the insurer, and the subsequent updating of the documentation. And one thing holds regardless of the contract: the external provider does the work, but does not take over the employer’s statutory liability.

Sources this article draws on

• Inspection of appliances and tools – a SOHE service.
• Labour inspectorate check – what the inspector examines during a check and which documents they want to see.
• OHS documentation for a company – which OHS documents a small company should keep and how to keep them up to date.
• OHS coordination on a construction site: when to arrange it and who does it – the division of duties when several companies meet at one workplace.
• Act No. 262/2006 Coll. – the Labour Code; Section 105 on the clarification of injuries, the injury log, and corrective measures, Section 271k(1) on the definition of a workplace injury.
• Government Regulation No. 322/2025 Coll. – from 1 January 2026 it governs the recording of injuries in the injury log, reporting, and the injury record; Section 6(2) on keeping the signed record for ten years.

This text is informational in nature and does not replace a legal opinion. The specific regime for recording, reporting, and investigating workplace injuries needs to be set up according to the actual operation, the manufacturer’s documentation, the environment of use, and the risk assessment.

Dealing with the technical condition of the equipment involved in an injury? As part of our Inspection of appliances and tools service, we check the condition of electrical appliances and hand tools as well as the documents that should go with them. Write to us at info@sohe.cz — we’ll get back to you with a date and price based on the scale of your operation.