Occupational safety for management consulting
In a management consultancy, most of the work happens outside your own office. The duties under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Occupational Safety Act and DGUV Regulation 2 still rest with the employer, so the risk assessment has to cover places that do not belong to you.
- Management consulting
Changing places of work: the workplace in management consulting
Consultants rarely work at the same desk for long. Much of their working time is spent at the client, on the train, in hotels and at home, and none of these places appears in a walkthrough of your own office.
For work at the client, the Occupational Health and Safety Act governs how the two employers cooperate. Where employees of several employers work at one workplace, the employers must inform each other about hazards and agree protective measures (section 8 (1) ArbSchG). The client must also satisfy itself that your consultants have received appropriate instructions for working on its premises (section 8 (2) ArbSchG). A single page in the project agreement is often enough: contact person on site, emergency numbers, escape routes, house rules, and access to production or laboratory areas only after a briefing.
Projects abroad add a further duty. For work in the tropics, the subtropics and other stays abroad involving particular climatic strain and risk of infection, the Ordinance on Occupational Health Care makes occupational health screening mandatory (ArbMedVV, Annex Part 4). The employer arranges it before the work begins, which means before departure (section 4 ArbMedVV).
Management consultancies under DGUV Regulation 2 and accident insurance
| Aspect | Management consultancy |
|---|---|
| Accident insurance institution | Verwaltungs-Berufsgenossenschaft (VBG), hazard tariff category for consulting and information services |
| Economic sector | WZ 70.2 public relations and management consultancy |
| Support group | III: above 20 employees 0.5 hours of basic support per employee and year, shared between specialist and occupational physician, at least 20 per cent each |
| Working at the client | Insurance cover to the same extent as on your own premises (section 8 (1) SGB VII), protective measures agreed with the client (section 8 ArbSchG) |
| Assignments in the tropics and subtropics | Mandatory screening before the work begins (ArbMedVV) |
| Up to 20 employees | Annex 1 of DGUV Regulation 2 with no fixed support hours |
| Above 20 employees | Occupational safety committee meeting once per calendar quarter (section 11 ASiG) |
| Up to 50 employees | Unternehmermodell permitted as an alternative |
Every employed consultant and analyst counts, as do assistants and working students. Freelancers in the project team do not count as long as they genuinely work on a self-employed basis. Part-time staff count proportionally towards the threshold of 20: up to 20 hours a week as 0.5, up to 30 hours as 0.75.
Four points for a management consultancy's risk assessment
- Working at the client. The desk at the client is your workstation, even though the rooms are not yours. What you cannot shape yourself must at least be assessed and agreed with the client.
- Travel and commuting accidents. Rail, hire car, flight: travel time carries the highest accident risk in the whole business. Commuting accidents are reportable accidents at work.
- Hot-desking in your own office. Where nobody has a fixed desk, nobody adjusts the chair. With desk sharing, showing people how to set up chair, desk and monitor is basic equipment, not a nice-to-have.
- Availability and project peaks. Long project phases with a high density of deadlines and availability beyond working hours are the central point of the assessment of mental stress under section 5 paragraph 3 ArbSchG.
For client assignments, a short form per project, completed by the project lead before kick-off, is usually enough: workstation, working hours, emergency arrangements, special areas at the client. How to capture project peaks and constant availability is described in Mental stress in the risk assessment.
Walking through a consultancy: what the office shows and what is missing
Your own office is usually unremarkable and often half empty. The findings are hot desks that are never adjusted and meeting rooms used permanently as workstations without ever having been assessed as such. The larger part is simply missing: for work at the client, while travelling and at home, many consultancies have no assessment at all, even though that is where most of the working time happens.
Safety training in management consultancies
What works in practice is training that follows the working day rather than the room: your own desk and hot-desking, working at the client including sign-in and their house rules, travel by rail and hire car, mobile work and working from home. Add the reporting routes, because an accident while travelling or at the client is reported exactly like one in your own office.
New consultants often go straight onto a project. Their initial safety training then has to come before their first day at the client, even if the induction day at your own office is weeks away.
Related
- External occupational safety specialist: Support models and hours for consultancies that travel a lot.
- Occupational safety for tax and audit practices: Audit teams, too, often spend weeks on the client's premises.
- Occupational safety for software and tech: For IT consultancies with teams at the client.
- Risk assessment for remote work and telework: What applies to telework and to mobile working.
- Accidents at work: reporting and deadlines: An accident at the client or on a business trip is reported too.
- ASA planner: Planning four meetings a year around packed project calendars.
Legal basis
- Occupational Health and Safety Act (ArbSchG)
- Occupational Safety Act (ASiG)
- DGUV Regulation 2 (occupational physicians and safety specialists)
- Ordinance on Occupational Health Care (ArbMedVV)
- Social Code Book VII (SGB VII), statutory accident insurance
Frequently asked questions
Which employers' liability insurance association covers management consultancies?
Consultancies are insured with the VBG. Its hazard tariff lists management, organisational and HR consultancies under consulting and information services. The membership notice states with binding effect which institution is responsible for your company.
Who is responsible if a consultant is given an unsuitable workstation at the client?
You remain the employer and must assess the assignment. The client is obliged to cooperate and must satisfy itself that your employees have received appropriate instructions for working on its premises (section 8 ArbSchG). A workstation that stays unsuitable, such as one in a thoroughfare or without an adjustable chair, should therefore be raised with the client and, if necessary, written into the project agreement.
What applies before a project assignment in the tropics?
Work in the tropics and subtropics triggers mandatory occupational health screening. The employer arranges it before the assignment. Besides doctors qualified in occupational medicine, doctors with the additional qualification in tropical medicine may carry it out. The work may not begin unless the employee has taken part (section 4 (2) ArbMedVV).
Other business types
Worry-free occupational safety in 4 steps
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Free initial consultation
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Contract signed
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Start of on-site support
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Audit-proof documentation in the portal
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