Journey Step 3 of 5
Choose your HSCER consultation route: direct or through elected representatives
Second decision: consult employees directly, or facilitate the election of representatives of employee safety (RoES)?
Once you know HSCER applies, regulation 3 lets you consult the affected employees directly, or through one or more elected representatives of employee safety. Direct consultation is usually simpler in very small workforces; the RoES route scales better and is often the practical choice once you have more than a handful of employees, multiple sites, or shift patterns that make a single all-staff conversation impractical. The two task guides below set out what each route looks like in practice — including the closed list of statutory consultation topics that you must cover whichever route you choose.
Consult your employees on health and safety
The direct route: how to run statutory consultation with affected employees, what you must consult on, and what "consult" means in law (in good time, genuine, two-way).
Read the guide →Elect representatives of employee safety (RoES) under HSCER 1996
The RoES route: eligibility, running the election, declaring the result, the statutory term of office, and what to do when no candidate stands.
Read the guide →