Identifying hazards is an essential step in the prevention process.
It consists in identifying existing hazards, then assessing the risks they present, in order to adopt the necessary measures to protect workers.

Independently of the legal obligation imposed on the employer, hazard identification helps to improve the company’s image and performance.

In fact, this preventive approach makes it possible to meet the human, social and financial challenges facing every company.

• It helps to improve working conditions and thus reduce absenteeism by preserving the physical and mental integrity of employees.
• It also helps to avoid the costs associated with an accident or occupational illness, thus preserving the company’s production capacity.
• Consequently, employee health and safety must never be dissociated from company operations.

2 Hazard identification regulations

2.1 The obligation to take the necessary measures to protect workers

Employers are required to ensure health and safety at work. This is laid down in Article 82 of the Accident Insurance Act (LAA) and Article 6 of the Labor Act (LTr).

To this end, Article 3 of the Swiss Ordinance on Accident Prevention (OPA) – which applies in principle to all companies employing workers in Switzerland – requires employers to take all protective measures and precautions necessary to prevent accidents:

• to the prescriptions of this order;
• other workplace safety provisions applicable to his company;
• recognized rules of safety technology and occupational medicine.

These protective measures must be checked at regular intervals to ensure that their effectiveness is not impaired. In the event of technical or organizational changes in the company, the employer will have to adapt them to the new conditions.

2.2 Suva’s S-T-O-P principle

Suva is one of the main pillars of the Swiss social insurance system, and has developed the “S-T-O-P” principle concerning the employer’s duty to implement protective measures.
These measures must be defined and an order of priority established for their implementation, based on the following principle:

• “S” indicates substitution measures: if possible, hazardous substances, installations and work processes should first be replaced by harmless or less hazardous products, methods and equipment.
• “T” indicates technical measures: workers must then be protected by collective protection measures (e.g. ventilation, guardrails, safety nets, etc.).
• “O” indicates organizational measures: the duration or number of employees exposed to hazards must be limited by means of training, supervision, break regulations, etc.
• “P” indicates Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): PPE can only be used as a complement to measures higher up the hierarchy, and is considered a measure of last resort.

2.3 Content and purpose of hazard identification

When the hazards are more specific and companies do not have the skills in-house, they have to call on specialists: STPS specialists, CFST engineers, occupational physicians, ergonomists, etc.).

This is the purpose of CFST directive no. 6508, which gives concrete form to the employer’s obligation to call on the services of occupational safety specialists (although it does not alter the scope of the OPA).

Identifying hazards is the first systematic step in workplace prevention. It is the central element of the MSST concept (occupational physicians and other occupational safety specialists).

Its aim is toidentify all situations, substances, equipment and processes likely to affect the health and safety of workers, and then to assess the resulting risks in order to implement appropriate and effective protective measures.

In concrete terms, the approach covers the following elements:

• Inventory of activities and workstations
  • Analysis of routine, occasional and exceptional tasks (maintenance, emergency interventions, cleaning, work at height, isolated work, etc.).
  • Consideration of actual operating modes, including possible deviations from procedures.
• Hazard identification
  • Physical: falls, machinery, moving parts, noise, vibrations, radiation, extreme temperatures.
  • Chemicals: hazardous products, gas/vapor/dust emissions, storage and handling of substances.
  • Biological: pathogens, working in damp environments or with animals.
  • Ergonomic: manual handling, awkward postures, repetitive movements.
  • Organizational and psychosocial: overwork, atypical working hours, stress, harassment.
  • Fire and explosion (ATEX): presence of combustible gases, vapors and dusts.
• Risk assessment
  • Analysis of potential severity of damage and probability of occurrence.
  • Identify and take into account existing protective measures (technical, organizational, PPE/EPC).
  • Update assessments whenever changes are made (new machine, product, organization).
• Consideration of particularly vulnerable groups
  • Pregnant or breast-feeding women: adapt workstations (avoid reprotoxic chemical agents, vibrations, carrying heavy loads, noise exposure, long night shifts).
  • Young workers and apprentices: prohibition of certain hazardous tasks, reinforced supervision, appropriate training.
• Definition and prioritization of protection measures according to the STOP principle:
  1. Substitution of hazardous products, processes or equipment.
  2. Technical: barriers, protection, ventilation, source capture.
  3. Organization: instructions, procedures, planning, limiting exposure.
  4. Personal protection (PPE): gloves, goggles, hearing protection, etc.

The ultimate aim is to reduce risks to as low a level as reasonably practicable, ensure regulatory compliance and continuously improve occupational health and safety. The results of hazard identification must be documented, monitored over time and integrated into the company’s overall prevention plan.

2.4 The employer’s civil and criminal liability

In accordance with the LAA/UVG and the Ltr, as well as the Swiss Code of Obligations and the Swiss Penal Code, the employer assumes overall civil and criminal responsibility for workplace safety.

Employers are responsible for choosing and implementing the protective measures they adopt.

Consequently, he can only be relieved of the accusation of a breach of his duty to protect workers if he proves that he has carefully selected the workers involved, trained and instructed them appropriately, and supervised them in a reasonable manner.

3 – Why choose Novallia for your hazard identification?

Novallia can help you determine the hazards in your company, using the method supported by SUVA:

3.1 Subdivide the company’s activity into business segments

Novallia offers to carry out your hazard identification based on the sectors of activity present in your company.

In fact, it’s essential to take into account “work situations” that may involve several activities and functions within your company, rather than just individual workstations.

3.2 Identify activities, work equipment and substances used

For all your business sectors, Novallia can identify the dangerous phenomena that can occur during your activities.

The aim is to identify every piece of work equipment and substance used that could pose a hazard to workers.

3.3 Identifying hazards

Novallia assesses the hazards and risks present in your company using :

• Ongoing dialogue with workers
• Scrupulous observation of actual work performed
• Field measurements by our experts to determine the presence of specific risks
• Controlling mandatory audits imposed on companies

3.4 Defining and implementing measures

After assessing the extent of the risks present in your company, our experts will advise you on the measures to be taken to eliminate them permanently or reduce them according to the S-T-O-P principle.
These may be useful recommendations for your company, or legal obligations that must be met.

3.5 Verify the effectiveness of measures by carrying out safety audits

Novallia will be with you every step of the way for all your activities.
Our experts can carry out security audits at your request, to ensure that the measures in place are always effective and up to date.

Indeed, if a decisive change or event occurs in your company, it becomes essential to carry out a new hazard assessment, and adapt it if necessary.

For more information on our services, please contact Novallia.

Safety at work in France remains a major challenge for both companies and employees, with a strong legal obligation and considerable human and economic impact.

Safety at work, a daily challenge

Safety at work is not just a matter of complying with a series of administrative rules: it’s a real culture that needs to be established to protect employees’ physical and mental health.

According to the Ministry of Labour, each employer must

• inform and train employees about risks,
• propose appropriate measures and
• improve safety at high-risk workstations, thus guaranteeing better prevention.

In France, in 2023-2024, there will be 717,719 recognized workplace accidents, of which 555,803 will result in lost time, and 759 fatalities. The main causes were manual handling (48-53%), falls (27-32%) and the use of machinery, often linked to inadequate training or failure to follow instructions.

Work-related accidents: figures and trends

According to Assurance Maladie, the number of accidents at work is declining slightly (by 1.5% in 2023), but fatalities are on the rise, underlining the need to step up prevention. Occupational illnesses, including musculoskeletal disorders and mental illnesses, are also on the rise, leading to absenteeism and long-term disability.

Why prevention needs to be stepped up

Despite the legal obligation enshrined in the French Labor Code (Articles L. 4121-1 et seq.), many companies only measure safety after an incident has occurred. Yet it is essential to develop a proactive approach:

• involve employees in drawing up instructions,
• measure danger reports and promote internal dialogue.

What to do?

Awareness-raising, ongoing training and the monitoring of indicators (number of hazards reported, equipment inspected, improvements proposed) help to really improve safety in the workplace and create a serene environment.

Legal obligations and tools available

Regulations require every company to produce a single risk prevention document, which identifies, analyzes and prioritizes the risks present in the workplace. Consulting firms (but also health services) support companies in implementing concrete actions: employee training, awareness-raising, safety culture audits or equipment audits. Finally, an effective prevention policy and good communication help to avoid accidents, reduce absenteeism and associated costs, and improve productivity.

2025: More stringent regulatory requirements

July 2025

Since July 10, 2025, the French government has stepped up occupational risk prevention. In concrete terms :

• More powers for labor inspectors, who can punish breaches even without an accident.
• Generalization of penal transactions: uncorrected discrepancies can be very costly.
• In the event of a fatal accident, liability now extends to the entire chain (employer, principal, client).
• Enhanced cooperation between labor inspectorates and law enforcement agencies.
• Increased support for victims.

October 2025

The deadline of October 1, 2025 concerns a new occupational safety regulation: from this date, employees assigned to positions requiring driving authorization or electrical clearance will no longer be subject to the usual reinforced individual medical monitoring.

• Every 5 years, the employees concerned will have to obtain a medical certificate issued by the occupational physician, confirming that they are not contraindicated in driving or in carrying out their duties.
• The certificate must be presented to the employer, who must keep a copy for the duration of its validity.
• Old notices of suitability issued before the entry into force remain valid for 5 years from their date of issue.
• If the certificate is refused, a simplified procedure before the industrial tribunal (Conseil de prud’hommes) is available to settle the dispute.
• The aim of this measure is to redeploy the medical resources of occupational health services to workplaces presenting particular risks, and to strengthen primary prevention.

This deadline strengthens traceability and the organization of prevention for specific risk jobs, while reducing the medical monitoring requirements for certain employees.

Employer obligations

• Identify the positions concerned and inform employees of the new obligation.
• Ensure that the medical examination required to obtain the certificate is organized for employees concerned by October 1, 2025.
• Keep all certificates for their period of validity, and keep the list up to date.

Prevention is the key to averting risks upstream!

Some ideas for action

• ✅ Regular risk analysis
• ✅ Targeted and ongoing training
• ✅ Maintenance and documented checks
• ✅ Compliant equipment
• ✅ DUERP and PAPRICAT updated
• ✅ Medical follow-up and traceability of actions

How can Novallia help you?

With its regulatory watch and compliance service

Keep up to date with the latest occupational health and safety regulations!

Monitoring and regulatory compliance

With its consulting services

Diagnostic sécurité

Safety culture diagnosis

Occupational risk assessment

Chemical risk assessment

With training courses

• Understand occupational health and safety issues and apply regulations
• Chemical risk regulations
• Chemical risk training for personnel
• Acquire basic knowledge of chemical hazards

Official sources

• Decree no. 2025-355 of April 18, 2025, effective October 1, 2025.
• Information on reinforced individual follow-up: FNEDT, ACISMT, Ministry of Labor.

Additional sources and resources

• Ministry of Labour, Occupational Safety
• Assurance Maladie 2023 report
• Labour code and legal obligations
• INRS key figures
• Statistics on accident causes

Safety at work is everyone’s business, and it’s thanks to collective commitment, proactive prevention and compliance with legal obligations that we can create a safer, healthier working environment!

By law, employers are obliged to ensure the health and safety of their employees, by implementing preventive measures.

First of all, you need to assess the occupational risks present on the site, then draw up the DUERP (taking into account the obligations according to the size of your company) and finally inform all workers and check that they have understood the information.

Obviously, although necessary and mandatory, all these steps are extremely time-consuming for the company’s HSE department!

👉 This is why solutions exist to relieve HSE managers while increasing process efficiency: compliance with regulations and monitoring, verification of understanding, proof and historicity of actions taken. And all optimized by digitization and artificial intelligence.

Before providing risk information, it’s important to assess the risks involved.

In order to know and understand the regulations applicable to the company, it is necessary to establish a
a regulatory safety diagnosis and an operational safety diagnosis.

To comply with health and safety regulations, companies must draw up their own occupational risk assessment document (DUERP).

The DUERP, a single document for assessing occupational risks, must include

• information on risk assessment and preventive measures taken.
• the role of the various prevention players
• provisions contained in internal regulations, if any.

Obligations differ according to the size of the organization (over or under 50 employees).

For companies with 50 or more employees, on an annual program to prevent occupational hazards and improve working conditions that :

1. Sets out a detailed list of measures to be taken over the coming year, including measures to prevent the effects of exposure to occupational risk factors, as well as, for each measure, its implementation conditions, result indicators and estimated cost.
2. Identifies company resources that can be mobilized;
3. Includes an implementation schedule

For companies with fewer than 50 employees, on the definition of risk prevention and employee protection initiatives. The list of these actions is recorded in the occupational risk assessment document (document unique d’évaluation des risques professionnels) and its updates.

Anticipating change

Since regulations are constantly changing, and your company’s activities can evolve too, you need to make sure you’re always compliant with current regulations. To achieve this, it will be necessary to keep a close watch on regulations in order to avoid non-compliance and possible sanctions.

-> At Novallia, we carry out these regulatory and operational diagnostics and set up a digital system for regulatory monitoring and compliance.

What are the penalties for non-compliance?

When employers fail to comply with regulations, they expose themselves to a wide range of penalties, including criminal sanctions, as well as damage to their image.

Penalties range from imprisonment to fines, some of them very high, and even cessation of activities.

Informing about risks: the first objective of a safety reception.

Safety reception is a mandatory procedure for companies. The aim is to raise awareness of potential health and safety risks, and inform the public about the preventive measures to be taken.

The aim of this approach is to enhance the health and safety of workers and visitors, while improving the company’s quality and productivity.

Welcoming the public in a safe manner also reflects the company’s safety culture. Its main objective is to ensure that employees and external visitors are fully aware of the risks present on the site, as well as the preventive measures in place and the people responsible for implementing them.

By providing adequate information to employees and visitors on health and safety risks, employers guarantee their protection against occupational accidents and diseases, while protecting themselves against possible criminal sanctions.

Who is concerned by the safety welcome?

By law, employers are obliged to ensure the health and safety of their employees by implementing preventive measures for all of the following groups:

👉 The workers he hires;
👉 Workers who change workstations or techniques ;
👉 Temporary employees, with the exception of those called in to carry out urgent work necessitated by safety measures and who are already qualified for such work;
👉 Workers returning to work after being off for at least twenty-one days [At the occupational physician’s request ]

[from Article L4141-2 of the French Labor Code Information and training for workers].

What are the regulations governing safety reception?

Articles L.4141-1 and 2 of the French Labor Code inform us of the mandatory nature of safety induction. It is the employer’s responsibility to inform workers about health risks and preventive measures. This information also covers the products or manufacturing processes used or implemented by the establishment, as well as the measures taken to remedy the risks associated with these products or processes.

There are several articles dealing with safety training: the 2 main ones, L4141-1 and L4141-2, supplemented by articles L4141-3 to L4141-5.

Here are the legal texts from Legifrance :

Articles L4141-3 and L4141-4 set out the terms and conditions of safety training courses:
L4141-3: The scope of the obligation to provide safety information and training varies according to the size of the establishment, the nature of its activity, the nature of the risks observed there and the type of employment of the workers.
L4141-4: Employers are responsible for financing safety training.

These articles are developed and broken down into requirements within the NV Compliance application. Their compliance can be easily assessed within the application.

How to comply with safety regulations?

As safety induction must be carried out as soon as employees are hired, and each time it is required (during the course of their contract), it can become extremely time-consuming for the site manager.

Today, companies can rely on the digitalization of these processes to ensure that they are properly implemented and monitored. Cikaba has set up a digital solution that effectively transmits safety instructions, ensures that they have been understood, and provides traceability and compliance with regulations.

In conclusion: human expertise + digitization = efficiency!

Combining human expertise and digitalization is one of the most effective combinations of our time: Cikaba has achieved it, for example, in the area of security reception, and Novallia in the area of regulatory compliance. These digitized processes save valuable time and enable greater precision and efficiency for corporate safety managers and preventionists.

Contact us to carry out a safety diagnosis and implement preventive measures.

What tools are needed for an improvement process?

Many companies, when they embark on a process improvement initiative, need to find a method of tracking their progress and creating corrective actions. Most of them still work on an excel file and share this file between the various parties involved.

Unfortunately, with this type of file, it is often complicated

• to monitor each project,
• collaborate effectively with internal and external stakeholders,
• keep track of progress
• report or communicate indicators to line management
• to have a tool available to everyone, at all times and in updated versions of documents

On the market we find both in-house software and collaborative and project management tools such as Monday, Trello and WIMI, but the latter are rather limited in some respects, and don’t allow fine customization of input and output data, nor “clean” execution of actions to remove non-conformities, let alone measure progress.

How a SAAS compliance solution can help all types of organization to manage their global processes

Novallia’s NV Compliance is basically a solution that enables any type of organization to manage its global compliance procedures.

Since compliance and continuous improvement of sites, products or activities is the ultimate goal, the application will follow the entire compliance process, whatever the objective:

1. we start by identifying “what needs to be done”, whether these are regulatory requirements, standards, internal/external audit findings or management decisions
2. we then go on to identify deviations using the dedicated conformity assessment module
3. Finally, we use the module for implementing improvement and compliance action plans.

What’s more, the solution can generate and automate a series of graphs, statistics, indicators and dashboards to optimize the overall process view.

A concrete example: managing improvement actions following an audit report

➡️ Issues

A company wants to manage its improvement process by implementing corrective actions, which are ordered by process. She uses our web tool to manage the actions.

Its specific needs include

• Feeding and using the tool by importing and exporting existing Excel files or findings from audit reports
• Internal monitoring of actions through multi-dimensional reporting and historical data
• Manage action plans by sending notifications to the relevant pilots
• Control the execution of actions by setting locks and alerts
• Collaboration and exchange between contributors

In terms of implementation :

👉 Defining requirements and entering them into the database

The Novallia team opens a tree structure based, for example, on each of the Processes. Each category is populated by Non-Conformities. In other words, audit results are treated as regulatory requirements in the usual logic of NV Compliance.

👉 Gap assessment

Via the “Compliance” module, the NV Compliance application enables you to assess deviations. Either directly on the application with the addition of a status :

• Compliant: the requirement is applicable to the site and respected.
• Non-compliant / Minor non-compliant / Major non-compliant: the requirement is applicable to the perimeter concerned, but is not met. Non-compliance can be prioritized
• To be verified: the user does not have sufficient elements to judge (lack of proof or evidence).
• Future non-compliance: the requirement is complied with until the necessary compliance date.
• For information: Non-Compliance relates to a generality or to a person who is not the customer.
• Not applicable: Non-Compliance relates to an activity or information that is not present in the scope under consideration.

The conformity assessment can also be carried out offline in Excel, using the export function. The assessment report will indicate:

• Compliance status
• Evaluation dates
• Annotations and comments
• if necessary, the need to create an action plan

Users can also carry out evaluations and add their comments directly on the report. He will then re-import it into the tool, and the modifications will be automatically taken into account.

The most important thing when using this Excel export/reimport functionality is to agree on the terms used: you need to use a procedure, harmonize the vocabulary used from the outset and keep the same for each section.

👉 Action plan modules

The NV Compliance Application includes a menu that is essential to the smooth running of the regulatory compliance exercise: the “Action plans” menu. Requirements identified as non-conforming generate a semi-automatic action plan.

For each action, the action plan creator assigns :

1. A wording
2. A reference (free text)
3. A priority
4. An action plan manager, a pilot
5. The opening (or not) of specific Tasks
6. The reminder process: periodic and/or one-off reminders
7. The method for calculating rates of advancement
8. An action start date and an end date

👉 NV Compliance’s innovative features

• Online sharing of all information
• Import and re-import excel at any time
• Real-time compliance dashboards
• customizing indicators
• module input handled by the novallia team and customized for each company

In conclusion: Why should you, as an HSE manager, use NV Compliance to manage your audit reports?

• Optimizing productivity NV Compliance simplifies project management and compliance assessment by centralizing all data and processes. The team saves precious time by avoiding the tedious tasks of collecting and tracking information.
• Facilitating real-time collaboration Unlike Excel, which requires the management of multiple file versions, NV Compliance enables real-time collaboration. Teams can work together on a project, see instant updates and, above all, eliminate delays due to file exchanges.
• Transparency and visibility Our application gives companies real-time visibility of the status of each project and the compliance of your operations. This enables informed decisions to be made, resources to be better allocated and potential delays to be minimized.
• Customization and flexibility NV Compliance is a web application designed to adapt to the specific needs of companies. It can be customized in terms of inputs: it can be used to drive both improvement processes following an audit, and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Access to in-depth analysis and reports Excel can be limited in terms of analytical capabilities, and requires a mastery of formulas that is not always accessible to everyone. Our application offers advanced analysis features on the degree of compliance (major, minor, upcoming, etc.) and generates detailed reports and customizable dashboards. The result is a clear view of project compliance and performance.
• Enhanced data security and historicity Data security is essential, especially when it comes to compliance. Our application offers advanced levels of security, including data encryption and customized access authorizations, protecting sensitive information far better than a shared Excel sheet, and keeping track of the work of different protagonists.
• Easy interfacing with regulatory and standards compliance, enabling managers to use a single cross-functional tool