Foreign companies temporarily working in Denmark must follow the Danish regulations on systematic health and safety efforts in the workplace. The way this cooperation is organised depends on the number of employees in the company.
If the employer has 10 or more employees, the company must set up a health and safety organisation (AMO) for health and safety cooperation.
For work on building sites, an AMO must be set up if there are at least 5 employees working at the same time for at least 14 days.
Here, "employees" includes all workers, such as hired labour, apprentices, part-time workers as well as temporary staff. Work managers are not considered as employees in this context.
If a company or building site is not required to establish an AMO, the employer must still involve managers and employees in the health and safety efforts.
Health and safety organisation (AMO)
The health and safety organisation is a formal cooperation on health and safety matters. In other words, the AMO is an internal organisation for health and safety cooperation within the company.
In the AMO, the key individuals are the employer or their representative, elected health and safety representatives and appointed managers. The chairperson must be either the employer or their representative.
The employer, in cooperation with the employees and managers, determines the required number of members for the AMO.
The health and safety representative must be chosen by the employees
A health and safety representative must be elected by the employees of the company. All employees, including apprentices, temporary staff and casual workers, without managerial responsibilities, have the right to participate in the selection.
The health and safety representative, together with the work manager, is responsible for helping to ensure a good work environment and prevent work-related issues.
The role of the health and safety representative is to represent the employees in safety and health cooperation. This includes contributing knowledge about health and safety in the employees' work environment and suggesting measures for risk prevention. The health and safety representative must therefore maintain constant contact with the employees.
Health and safety representatives shall be elected for a two-year term.
AMO members must complete occupational health and safety training
The employer must ensure that health and safety representatives and supervisors in the health and safety organisation complete or have completed a mandatory 3-day health and safety training course.
The Occupational Health and Safety Training programme is designed to provide health and safety representatives and managers in the AMO with basic knowledge of occupational health and safety. It also aims to support systematic cooperation on work environment issues, involving both management and employees.
The occupational health and safety training must be completed within 3 months of the appointment of the health and safety representative or manager.
If AMO members have received occupational health and safety training abroad, it must be supplemented with Danish training, unless the Danish Working Environment Authority deems the training carried out abroad to be sufficient.
When enquiring about the recognition of occupational health and safety training conducted abroad, it is important to specify whether the overseas training is equivalent to the Danish occupational health and safety training or a different type of course.
Multi-level AMO with health and safety groups and committees
If a company has 35 or more employees, it must establish a two-tier health and safety organisation (AMO), consisting of one or more health and safety groups and one or more health and safety committees.
Similarly, if a company has 35 or more employees working simultaneously on a building site for at least 4 weeks, it must establish an AMO on the construction site that includes both health and safety groups and health and safety committees.
The health and safety groups handle the daily tasks of the AMO, such as conducting inspections and addressing employee enquiries. Each health and safety group consists of one appointed supervisor and one elected health and safety representative.
A health and safety committee is made up of managers and health and safety representatives from one or more health and safety groups. The health and safety committee is responsible for the overall tasks of planning, leading, and coordinating the company’s health and safety cooperation efforts. In larger workplaces, there may be multiple health and safety committees.
