International Journal of Workplace Health Management, Volume 4, Issue 2

Small enterprises constitute a major challenge for occupational health and safety (OHS) regulators, professionals and researchers. They make up the great majority of all establishments and employ a major part of the work force; yet, by and large, preventive efforts are designed for larger enterprises and rarely reach the smaller ones. One important reason is cost. It is simply expensive to reach out to the huge number of individual enterprises, and small enterprises are therefore seldom inspected, advisory services show little interest in this group, and in some cases there are even legal exceptions that mean small enterprises do not need to follow parts of the OHS legislation.