Clause 7.2: Competence
The organization decides what competence workers need where their work affects, or could affect, OH&S performance.
What clause 7.2 asks
The organization decides what competence workers need where their work affects, or could affect, OH&S performance. It makes sure workers are competent, which includes being able to spot hazards, through education, training or experience; where applicable it acts to gain and keep that competence and checks whether those actions worked; and it keeps documented information as proof of competence.
Competence is the ability to do the work and to recognise the hazard in it. Attendance at a course is not evidence of either.
Train the worker and the manager. The practitioner summary names training and competence as an area the guidance addresses. A remote worker needs to set up a workstation, recognise a hazard, report an incident and know when to stop. A manager needs to recognise isolation, overload and withdrawal in someone they may not see. Both are competences the organization can define, provide and record.
Basis: Arinite, BSI. For clause 7.2, the public record is a draft guideline and does not state a requirement in terms that this site can quote. The clause 7.2 overlay is our reading of the public scope and the named summaries, not the draft text.
Evidence for clause 7.2
An auditor will ask a worker to explain a hazard in their own task, then check the competence record against that answer.
- Competence Competency matrix by role including hazard identification ability
- Competence Training records and competence assessments
- Competence Effectiveness evaluations of training
- Competence Licence and certification records for high-risk work
Where clause 7.2 commonly fails
- Competence defined as attendance at training
- Hazard identification competence not assessed
- Contractor competence not verified
What to do about clause 7.2 before the guidance lands
Add remote-specific competences to the matrix: workstation setup, hazard and incident reporting, emergency arrangements, workload and boundary management, and manager conversations about wellbeing. Deliver the training in paid time, record completion and test it with a scenario.
For clause 7.2, do the work that will be right under either instrument. The current requirement for clause 7.2 is ISO 45001:2018, and the certificate, if you hold one, is issued against it. The clause 7.2 remote working preparation is an extension of the existing duty to a group of workers the system already covers, not a new system and not a reason to rebuild around a draft.
Read across from clause 7.2
Open the full index. The public record behind clause 7.2 shows the scope and the themes.
Source for clause 7.2: ISO 45001:2018, clause 7.2, retrieved 20 October 2026, record at the standards library. The clause 7.2 remote overlay rests on the public 45008 record named above. The clause 7.2 requirement, evidence and gaps are written from our clause record. Every source.