DSE training: what employers actually have to provide

Training is the DSE duty employers most often assume they have met because they sent a poster round. Regulations 6 and 7 are specific about what is required, and the bar is lower than a course but higher than an email.

What regulation 6 requires

Adequate health and safety training in the use of any workstation the person may be required to work at, provided before they use it, and repeated whenever the workstation is substantially modified.

Substantially modified covers more than it sounds: a new desk, a new chair, a move to a different office, a change to home working, or significantly different software.

What regulation 7 requires

Adequate information about all aspects of health and safety relating to their workstation, the measures taken to comply, and specifically their entitlements around eye tests and breaks.

What has to be covered

• The risks from DSE work and the main causes, particularly posture, fixed positions and lack of breaks
• How to adjust their own chair, screen, keyboard and mouse
• How to arrange the workstation to avoid awkward reaching and twisting
• Why breaks and changes of activity matter, and what counts as one
• The importance of reporting discomfort early, and how to do it
• Their entitlement to an eye and eyesight test at the employer’s expense
• Who to speak to about a problem, and what the assessment process is

What it does not have to be

There is no requirement for a certificated course, an external trainer or an annual refresher. There is no accreditation body for DSE user training. Anyone selling you compulsory annual certification is selling you something the regulations do not ask for.

How small businesses meet it cheaply

Three approaches, all defensible:

A good assessment tool

An assessment that explains why each finding matters is doing the training work as it goes. It does not cover entitlements unless it says so explicitly.

A short induction item

Fifteen minutes at induction covering the list above, recorded as completed. Sufficient for most small businesses.

A one-page guide

Issued with the assessment invitation and kept somewhere findable. Cheap, and it doubles as the regulation 7 information.

Record it

Whatever you do, note who received it and when. Training you cannot evidence is training you did not do, as far as an inspector or a court is concerned.