A shift foreman signs the same attendance sheet as their team, sits through the same slide deck about slipping on a wet floor — and the company feels its BOZP (occupational health and safety) training is taken care of. The Labour Code sees it differently. Under Section 101(2) of Act No. 262/2006 Sb., care for occupational health and safety is an integral and equal part of the job duties of managers at every level of management, to the extent of the positions they hold.
In other words: a manager is not just one more protected person on the shop floor. They are the person through whom the employer actually delivers workplace safety. When a subordinate is injured, the first questions are not aimed at the company director but at the immediate supervisor — did they know about the risk, did they check, did they step in? Training that fails to explain this role to a manager does not serve its purpose. Let’s go through who counts as a manager in the first place, how the content of their training should differ, when and how often to train, and how to document all of it.
Who counts as a manager — and why you have more of them than you think
The Labour Code defines managers in Section 11: they are employees who, at the individual levels of management, are authorised to set and assign work tasks to subordinates, to organise, direct and check their work and to give them binding instructions to that end. What decides the matter is actual managerial authority, not a job title on a business card.
In practice this means managers include not only the director and the head of production, but typically also:
- the foreman or shift supervisor in the workshop and in production,
- the shop or branch manager directing sales assistants or service staff,
- the warehouse manager organising the work of storekeepers and handlers,
- the team leader or crew leader, if they genuinely assign and check work,
- the maintenance section head sending people out to work on equipment.
The most common mistake we see in companies: training “for managers” is attended by the director and two managers, while foremen and crew leaders — the people closest to their subordinates’ risks, making decisions about them every day — only go through the rank-and-file session. Yet it is precisely at the first level of management that workplace safety either happens or does not.
In a small company the manager’s role is often filled by the owner. The same applies to them: if they direct employees’ work, they should be demonstrably trained on the duties that come with it — owning the company is no substitute for knowing the rules.
Why manager training differs from rank-and-file training
The foundation is Section 103(2) of the Labour Code: the employer must provide employees with training on the legal and other regulations ensuring BOZP that complement their professional qualifications and the requirements for performing their work and relate to the work they carry out. And here lies the heart of the difference — a manager’s “work” is not just their own trade skill, but also directing people. Under Section 101(2), their job duties include caring for the safety of their subordinates, and under Section 302 of the Labour Code they must, among other things, create favourable working conditions and ensure occupational health and safety.
A rank-and-file employee is trained mainly on how to behave safely themselves. A manager is trained additionally on how to ensure safety for others. Their training therefore typically covers:
- Their own legal responsibility — what Section 101(2) and Section 302 of the Labour Code specifically mean for their position, and where their responsibility begins and ends relative to the employer’s.
- Risk management in their area — how to work with the risk assessment for their workplaces, when to report changed conditions (a new machine, a modified procedure, a new workplace) and how to co-operate with the qualified risk-prevention specialist under Act No. 309/2006 Sb.
- Inspection duties — what to check on the shop floor, how often and how to record it: use of protective equipment, compliance with prohibitions and prescribed procedures, condition of the equipment entrusted to them.
- What to do when a subordinate has an accident at work — securing the scene, providing assistance, recording and reporting it; we cover the follow-up steps in detail in our article on what to do immediately after a workplace accident.
- Dealing with an uncooperative subordinate — what to do when an employee refuses protective equipment or breaks prohibitions: how to intervene, how to record it and when to escalate, so the manager is not the one who “knew about the problem and did nothing”.
- Organising training for subordinates — which of their people needs which training, how to keep track of deadlines and what to do with a new hire, a temporary worker or an employee returning from a long absence.
What makes no sense, on the other hand, is simply repeating the rank-and-file syllabus to managers under a different heading. They should of course know the general rules of safe conduct — we covered the content, scope and documentation of standard training in our article on BOZP training for employees — but the managerial layer on top is what makes manager training manager training.
When to train a manager: taking up the post is the trigger
Section 103(2) of the Labour Code lists the situations in which training must be provided — among others on starting work and on a change of job assignment or type of work. Appointment to a managerial post is exactly such a change: someone who was operating a production line yesterday is responsible for the safety of five people today. The sensible approach is to train them on their new duties before they actually start directing the team, not at “the next group session” six months later.
The same goes for other triggers: introducing a new technology or substantially changing work procedures in the section the manager directs — their role in rolling out the change differs from that of the operator.
How often to repeat manager training
No legal regulation sets a general interval for repeating manager training — as with rank-and-file employees, the content and frequency of training, the way knowledge is verified and how records are kept are determined by the employer under Section 103(3) of the Labour Code, taking into account the nature of the work and the risks involved.
In practice, the established pattern for managers is repetition roughly every 2 to 3 years; in manufacturing and higher-risk operations often annually alongside everyone else, but with a dedicated content block of their own. It is sensible to set the interval down in writing in an internal directive — and to keep to it. Failing to meet your own rule looks worse during an inspection than a longer interval that is actually observed.
Outside the regular interval, ad hoc manager training makes sense when something has happened: an accident in their section, recurring findings from internal checks, a substantial change in legislation. Analysing a real event from your own company carries far more weight with managers than any general commentary.
How to document manager training
The documentation differs from rank-and-file training mainly in one respect: it must be clear from it that managers were trained on different content. In practical terms this means:
- a separate syllabus for managers — covering responsibility, inspection duties and the procedure after an accident, not a copy of the rank-and-file syllabus,
- an attendance sheet tied to that syllabus, with the date and the trainer’s name and qualifications,
- verification of knowledge — with managers it makes sense to ask about decision-making situations (“a subordinate refuses to wear a respirator — what do you do and what do you record?”), not just definitions,
- a record of training on taking up the post, if the manager was appointed between the regular sessions.
This is exactly what the labour inspectorate asks about when checking training: whether the company trains its managers, what it trains them on and how it verified that they understood the content. A single attendance sheet shared by the director, the foremen and temporary workers is easy for them to assess — as formal training with no relation to the work actually performed. We describe what else an inspection examines and how to prepare for it in our article on the labour inspectorate check.
What is at stake if managers are not trained
The most sensitive situation arises after a subordinate’s accident at work. The investigation looks at whether the manager fulfilled their duties — did they check, did they intervene, did they know about the risks. If the company cannot show that it trained them on those duties at all, that weakens its position towards both the inspectorate and the insurer, and raises the question of who caused the failing. Shortcomings in training records are among the findings that the labour inspection addresses under Act No. 251/2005 Sb., on labour inspection; the specific sanction depends on the seriousness and circumstances of the finding.
For the manager personally, the duties under Section 101(2) and Section 302 of the Labour Code are part of their job duties — so breaching them can have personal employment-law consequences for them. That is another reason why managers usually appreciate good training: it clearly sets out what is expected of them and what is already beyond the limits of their role.
How to organise it painlessly
What works in practice is training managers in a separate, smaller block — either ahead of the session for everyone else, or as an add-on layer on the same day. With a group of up to roughly fifteen people there is room to go through specific sections and real situations from the operation, which turns an obligation into a useful working session on risk management.
If you have no one in-house to put together a manager syllabus and deliver the training competently, we will handle it for you — we run employee training at your premises or ours, including a separate block for managers, syllabi, knowledge verification and complete documentation. You can arrange a date through a no-obligation enquiry; tell us the number of managers and rank-and-file employees and the type of operation, and we will come back with a proposed scope and date. We looked at the indicative cost of external training in our article on how much BOZP and PO training costs a company.
Sources for this article
- Employee training – a SOHE service for companies.
- BOZP training for employees: when to repeat it and what it must cover – the general training regime that manager training builds on.
- Act No. 262/2006 Sb. – the Labour Code; Section 11 defines managers, Section 101(2) makes care for BOZP part of their job duties, Section 103 governs training and Section 302 sets out further duties of managers.
- Act No. 309/2006 Sb. – on ensuring further conditions of BOZP; it governs, among other things, the professional qualification for risk prevention that managers draw on when directing their section.
- Act No. 251/2005 Sb. – on labour inspection; it defines inspections and offences in the field of occupational safety.
The legal position was verified as at 9 August 2026. The Labour Code is used in the wording effective from 1 January 2026, Act No. 309/2006 Sb. in the wording of the amendment effective from 1 November 2025.
This text is for information purposes and does not replace legal advice. The specific content, scope and intervals of manager training need to be set according to your actual operation, management structure and risk assessment.
Are your foremen, crew leaders and site managers trained only with the rank-and-file slide deck? We will prepare training for managers tailored to your operation — at your premises or ours, including syllabi, knowledge verification and documentation that stands up to inspection. Send us a no-obligation enquiry or write to info@sohe.cz and we will arrange a date.