IOSH Courses: How Do They Work?
IOSH courses are the globally recognised benchmark for practical safety training, across a wide variety of industries. They’re accessible, engaging, and crucially, they’re immediately applicable. The goal of the training is to make sure that every employee, at every level, understands their safety responsibilities. The two most popular courses are IOSH Managing Safely, and IOSH Working Safely. But how do they work?
The Core Difference in Audience and Duration
The way the courses work is dictated by their target audience. The IOSH Working Safely course is an entry-level, one-day qualification designed for all employees, regardless of seniority. Its purpose is to teach the essentials of hazard identification and risk control to the entire workforce.
Managing Safely is a three-day course aimed specifically at managers, supervisors, and team leaders. It focuses on how to manage, implement, and audit safety procedures within a team. Both are highly practical, but Working Safely teaches you how to be safe, while Managing Safely teaches you how to lead safety.
The IOSH Courses: Flexible Delivery and Accessibility
A key feature of the courses is their flexible delivery, designed to fit the demanding schedules of working professionals. Managing Safely can be taken in-person or online, while at CST Training, we offer Working Safely exclusively online.
Regardless of the method chosen, the content and final certification remain exactly the same, ensuring global recognition and validity. This flexibility ensures that no one is excluded from gaining this vital safety qualification due to geographical or scheduling constraints.
The Work-Based Assessment Model
The assessments are designed to test application, not memory.
- IOSH Working Safely concludes with an online, multi-format assessment, which often includes a hazard-spotting exercise where candidates analyse an image to identify risks.
- IOSH Managing Safely has a two-part assessment: a multiple-choice knowledge test, and a work-based risk assessment project. This practical project requires the candidate to apply the course methodology to a real-world task in their workplace (or a scenario provided by the training body), proving they can translate learning into actionable safety procedures.
IOSH Courses: Certification and Lifetime Validity
Upon successful completion of the course and its assessments, candidates will receive an official IOSH certificate. A major benefit is that both the Working Safely and Managing Safely certificates are valid for life. They don’t have an official expiry date. However, IOSH strongly recommends that delegates take a refresher course every three years, particularly for managers, to ensure their knowledge remains current with the rapidly evolving legislation and best practices within the safety industry.
Conclusion (IOSH Courses: How Do They Work?)
The courses work by delivering practical, accessible, and globally recognised safety training tailored to different professional levels. They function on a simple, effective model: clear instruction followed by an application-based assessment. Whether you need the one-day awareness of Working Safely or the three-day leadership competence of Managing Safely, IOSH provides the essential tools to build a safer workplace.
If you still have any questions regarding the course, then do not hesitate to get in touch.
Phone – 020 3488 4472
