Occupational Health and Safety Basics: What a Small Business Actually Has to Do

Occupational health and safety sounds like a large-employer concern — hard hats, factory floors, formal committees — and many small business owners assume it genuinely doesn't apply to them. It does. The Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 places a real, general duty on every employer, and the formal structures (representatives, committees) that scale with employee count are additional obligations layered on top of that baseline duty, not a substitute for it.

The baseline duty every employer carries, regardless of size

Section 8 of the Act requires every employer, as far as is reasonably practicable, to provide and maintain a working environment that is safe and without risk to employees' health. In practice, this means:

• Identifying hazards genuinely present in the specific workplace — not a generic checklist, but the actual risks a specific business's premises and work involve.
• Controlling those risks through reasonable, practical measures — proper equipment, safe systems of work, adequate maintenance of anything that could pose a hazard.
• Training and informing employees about the hazards they're actually exposed to, so they genuinely understand the risks of their specific work, not a vague general awareness.
• Supervising work to ensure safety measures are actually followed in practice, not simply documented and forgotten.

"As far as is reasonably practicable" is a genuinely important qualifier — the Act doesn't require an impossible standard of zero risk, but it does require a business to actually think through and address the risks genuinely present in its own workplace, proportionate to what a reasonable employer in that situation would do. A small office with low physical risk carries a genuinely lighter practical burden than a workshop or a business handling hazardous materials — but the underlying duty to think it through applies to both.

The formal structures that scale with employee count

Beyond the general duty, specific structural obligations become mandatory as a business grows:

• Health and safety representatives become compulsory once an employer has more than 20 employees at a workplace, under section 17 of the Act. These representatives are full-time employees, democratically nominated and elected by their co-workers, appointed in writing for a defined period, and must be genuinely familiar with the conditions of the specific area of the workplace they're designated to oversee. The required ratio is roughly one representative per 100 workers for shops and offices, or one per 50 workers for other types of workplace — though a Department of Employment and Labour inspector can require additional representatives even below the 20-employee threshold if the specific circumstances (a complex or hazardous layout, for instance) genuinely warrant it.
• A health and safety committee is typically required once a workplace has more than one health and safety representative, bringing representatives and management together to review and address workplace safety matters jointly rather than leaving it to management alone.

A small business under the 20-employee threshold is not exempt from OHSA — it simply isn't required to run these specific formal representative and committee structures. The section 8 general duty still applies in full.

What non-compliance actually costs

Negligent failure to comply with the Act's requirements can carry a fine of up to R100,000, imprisonment of up to two years, or both — and where non-compliance genuinely contributes to serious harm or a fatality, the exposure (both criminal and reputational) is considerably more serious than the base penalty figures suggest. This is not a compliance area where "we're too small to matter" offers any real protection — a small business where someone is genuinely injured because a known, reasonably addressable hazard was left unaddressed faces the same underlying legal exposure as a larger one.

What this looks like practically for a genuinely small business

• Walk through your actual workplace and honestly identify what could realistically cause harm — trip hazards, electrical risks, manual handling of heavy items, whatever genuinely applies to your specific business, rather than working from a generic list that doesn't match your actual premises.
• Address what's reasonably fixable — proper storage, basic maintenance, clear walkways, appropriate equipment for the work being done.
• Tell employees what the actual risks are and how to work safely around them — this doesn't require a formal training programme for a small, low-risk office, but it does require genuine communication, not silence.
• Keep basic records of what's been identified and addressed — useful both for genuinely managing risk over time and for demonstrating a good-faith effort if anything is ever questioned.
• Know when you'll cross the 20-employee threshold, and plan for the representative appointment process ahead of actually needing it, rather than discovering the requirement only once you're already over the line.

Sources: the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 (section 8's general employer duty to provide a safe working environment "as far as is reasonably practicable"; section 17's health and safety representative requirements, including the more-than-20-employee threshold and the roughly 1-per-100 (shops/offices) or 1-per-50 (other workplaces) ratios) and the Act's penalty provisions for negligent non-compliance (fine up to R100,000 and/or imprisonment up to two years). This is general information, not legal or safety-compliance advice — a business in a genuinely higher-risk industry (construction, manufacturing, businesses handling hazardous materials) should get a proper safety assessment from a qualified professional rather than relying on general guidance alone.

A worked example

A small business with eight employees operates from a converted warehouse space, with exposed cabling running across a walkway that everyone has simply learned to step over. The owner has never formally considered health and safety obligations, assuming — incorrectly — that with fewer than 20 staff, OHSA simply doesn't apply. An employee trips over the cabling and is injured. Because the business is under the 20-employee threshold, no mandatory health and safety representative was required — but the section 8 general duty to address a genuinely identifiable, reasonably fixable hazard applied throughout, regardless of employee count. A simple fix (properly routing or covering the cabling) that would have cost very little becomes, after the fact, a genuine compliance failure with real legal and human consequences.

Frequently asked

Does OHSA apply to a home-based or remote-working business? The Act's core focus is the physical workplace, so its practical application differs for a genuinely remote or home-based setup, though an employer still carries a general duty of care toward employees' health and safety connected to their work, whatever the physical setting.

Do I need a written health and safety policy even as a very small employer? A formal written policy is not universally mandatory for every small employer under the Act itself, but having basic, genuine documentation of identified hazards and how they're addressed is good practice regardless of size, and becomes more clearly expected as a business and its risks grow.

Who enforces OHSA compliance? Inspectors from the Department of Employment and Labour have the authority to inspect workplaces, require compliance, and escalate serious non-compliance — inspections aren't limited to large employers, and a small business can genuinely be inspected.

Does an office-based business with low physical risk still need to worry about OHSA? Yes, in principle, though the practical burden is considerably lighter — an office environment still has real, if less dramatic, hazards (electrical safety, ergonomics, fire safety, trip hazards) worth genuinely thinking through rather than assuming a low-risk environment means no obligation at all.

What should I do if an employee raises a safety concern? Take it seriously and address it — even below the threshold requiring a formal representative system, genuinely engaging with a raised safety concern is both the sensible practical response and consistent with the spirit of the Act's general duty, rather than dismissing a concern because no formal structure technically requires a response.

Does OHSA cover mental health, or only physical safety? The Act's traditional focus and most of its detailed provisions concern physical health and safety hazards, though a broader duty of care toward employees' wellbeing exists alongside it under general employment law principles — a genuinely toxic or hazardous psychological work environment carries its own separate legal risk beyond OHSA's specific physical-safety provisions.

If I use contractors rather than employees, do I still have OHSA obligations toward them? Yes, generally — the Act's duties extend to ensuring that people other than employees who may be affected by the business's activities (including contractors working on your premises) are not exposed to risks to their health and safety, not solely your own directly employed staff.