Employer and OHS duties set out as decree 503/2026 takes effect 1.1.2027

Every employer must arrange statutory preventive occupational healthcare, even with a single employee.Tyosuojelu The employer, staff representatives and the service provider jointly plan needs-based content and then monitor whether it works, and the occupational safety authority supervises that the statutory services have been arranged and delivered.

The employer arranges the services and stays responsible for their delivery and for using OHS expertise, for the health and safety of working conditions and work and for promoting work ability, for passing the hazard assessment and other relevant information to occupational healthcare, and for maintaining its own knowledge base in relation to occupational healthcare activities. Occupational healthcare learns the work and conditions to act as an expert, uses the employer's hazard assessment, keeps expertise adequate for the workplace's features, delivers the contracted quality, provides counselling, guidance and support to the employer, and passes information back with data protection observed.

Four written instruments carry the duties. Systematic identification of hazards and assessment of risks rests on Työturvallisuuslaki 738/2002 section 10, the OHS action programme on section 9, the workplace survey on Työterveyshuoltolaki 1383/2001 section 12, and the action plan on section 11. The action plan states the general objectives with the workplace's needs and resulting measures, is reviewed annually on the basis of workplace visits and other surveys, and may form part of the OHS action programme. A good workplace survey covers every post, condition and task including vulnerable workers, assesses every exposure's health significance, and holds concrete prevention, removal or reduction proposals — and it stays visible to employees.

Organisational measures come before individual ones, since they protect best, and personal protective equipment is last. A good risk assessment is proactive, built on earlier hazardous situations, accidents and near misses; practical, its main task producing clear and feasible proposals for improving safety; documented, with results, conclusions and implementation records; and evolving, with follow-up, residual-risk assessment and continuous monitoring. The decks cover chemical exposures including CLP hazard classes and listed dusts, fumes and gases, biological exposures with transmission routes and classification basis, and physical exposures as forms of energy from work or the work environment acting on the body, with noise, vibration, lighting and working in heat and cold; the statutes named for each area are: Valtioneuvoston asetus 715/2001 kemiallisista tekijöistä työssä (chemical agents at work), carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic factors 113/2024 with register act 452/2020, harmful concentrations 55/2025, biological agents 933/2017, classification 748/2020, special-risk health examinations 1485/2001, noise 85/2006, vibration 48/2005, optical radiation 146/2010, electromagnetic fields 388/2016, workplace requirements 577/2003 and pregnant-worker protection 143/2024.

From 1 January 2027 the framework changes: amendment decree 503/2026, given on 11 June 2026Finlex, to the 708/2013 decreeFinlex enters into forceFinlex with a new title and a revised section 1 under which the employer, employees or their representatives and the OHS professionals and experts pursue systematic and goal-oriented cooperationFinlex. Two duties phase in later: the written agreement on organising occupational healthcare must itemise the services bought from the provider in the section-3 manner by 1 January 2029Finlex, and the OHS unit must hold the section-5 written quality, effectiveness and monitoring plan by the same dateFinlex.

Supervision looks for workplaces with an up-to-date risk assessment covering all risks and personal characteristics, an up-to-date occupational healthcare workplace survey, and occupational healthcare cooperation between the employer and the provider that works, with a workplace tour part of inspections. The webinar behind the materials was held on 5 November 2026; the slide decks are on the event page and the recording follows there.

Legal basis: Työturvallisuuslaki (738/2002), Työterveyshuoltolaki (1383/2001) and Valtioneuvoston asetukset 708/2013 and 503/2026.