Health and safety representative (AMR): Get support from IDA

As an occupational health and safety representative (in Danish “Arbejdsmiljørepræsentant or AMR), your main task is to promote safety and well-being and to cooperate with management to create safe and healthy workplaces for everyone.

You can be elected as health and safety representative if you are not a manager. You are chosen by the fellow employees you are to represent, regardless of which trade union you each belong to in the workplace.

As a health and safety representative, you will be offered courses and training, and you will be part of a large professional network.

What tasks do you have as a health and safety representative?

Here is a selection of the tasks you have as a health and safety representative:

Help ensure a healthy and safe working environment.
Be an active observer, for example by observing the psychosocial working environment, making rounds, looking for places where special methods or procedures may be needed. It can, for example, be in connection with noise, heavy lifting, or the purchase of new equipment, new workflows, new systems/software.
Participate in the preparation of workplace risk assessments (APVs).
Ensure that the necessary workplace instructions or other checklists are in place.
Make proposals for new initiatives.
Act as a liaison between the employees and the health and safety committee (arbejdsmiljøudvalg).
Ensure co-involvement and co-influence.
Be a good role model.

Companies can choose to structure their work environment organisation in many different ways. It is therefore a good idea to start by finding out what the work environment organisation looks like at your workplace:

Who is part of the working environment organisation?
Is there more than one work environment groups and which areas do they cover?
How does collaboration work in the overall work environment organisation?
Who are your most important collaboration and alliance partners both externally and internally at the workplace?

Check your intranet or ask your predecessor if there is information you are missing.

Clarify the expectations for your role as a health and safety representative

It is a good idea to clarify the expectations that both you and others have for your new function as health and safety representative. The easiest way is to ask those who may have expectations of you. It can be:

The management of the work environment group.
A union representative, if you have one.
Colleagues or employees.
The cooperation committee or MED committee.

IDA recommends: That you familiarise yourself with who you are going to represent, and if you are in doubt whether you can cover several physical locations or very different professional groups, then have talk to the head of your work environment organisation - or contact IDA.

What training and courses must you have as a health and safety representative?

As a newly elected health and safety representative, you must be registered for the mandatory occupational health and safety training within 3 months of being elected. The employer has to cover all costs in connection with the course.

In continuation of the mandatory occupational health and safety training, you are entitled to 2 days of competence development in the first year, and then you are entitled to 1½ days in subsequent years

IDA holds a wide range of courses for elected representatives, also for you as a health and safety representative.

See the list of IDA's courses for elected representatives (in Danish)

IDA recommends: IDA does not recommend a specific provider of occupational health and safety training. Choose the provider and form (in-person or virtual) that suits you best in terms of time and transport distance. You can find the approved providers here:

See the list of approved providers of in-person training for AMRs at the Danish Working Environment Authority (in Danish)

See the list of approved providers of virtual training for AMRs at the Danish Working Environment Authority (in Danish)

What rights do you have as a health and safety representative?

Once you have been elected as a health and safety representative, you must register at your workplace. You must also register with IDA, so that in the future you will receive offers for training, competence development and professional networks.

Your employer must give you the necessary time to attend to your duties as health and safety representative. It may be a good idea to make agreements about expectations for the task and then make agreements about time consumption.

As a health and safety representative, you basically have the same protection as a trade union representative (Working Environment Act §10 subsection 2). This means that you must not be fired or treated less favourably than the other employees as a result of your duties.

Get help from IDA as a health and safety representative

As a health and safety representative, you have your own contact person in IDA. You can write to chief consultant Helle Bødker at heb@ida.dk
With IDA's working life consultant, you can get help in finding knowledge and tools for issues within the physical and psycho-social working environment. If you have a specific problem that the working life consultant cannot help you with, you can get advice from certified working environment advisers through IDA.
When your workplace has to complete the statutory workplace risk assessment (APV), you can get inspiration and sparring for various mapping methods and follow-up advice from IDA's working life consultant.
As a health and safety representative, you receive the Tillidsposten newsletter approximately every 3 weeks. This is a special newsletter for you as a as an elected representative with news about working life, agreements, new legislation and tools to carry out your duties.
When you register on IDA.dk as health and safety representative, you come across the question: 'Organizations you represent', here it is sufficient for occupational health and safety representatives to tick "IDA - Engineers' Association, IDA", as occupational health and safety representatives represent members across professional organizations and personnel groups.

Do you have questions about your role as an occupational health and safety representative? Contact IDA's working life consultant:

As a working environment representative, you can get advice and guidance from your contact person, chief consultant Helle Bødker, by email: heb@ida.dk

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