Fieldwork manager

If you are a fieldwork leader, have a leadership function, or plan or teach/advise during the fieldwork

As a fieldwork leader, work leader, planner or teacher during the fieldwork, you are responsible for ensuring that all fieldwork participants carry out the work in a way that is completely safe. This applies to fieldwork in Denmark and abroad.

You are responsible for:

• Having the necessary competences to be a fieldwork leader, and that these are approved by your employer
• Making sure a risk assessment is done in advance of the fieldwork and if there are significant changes on location, and getting this approved by your manager
• Creating relevant contingency plans
• Presenting the risk assessment and contingency plans to the local work environment association if the work is hazardous and getting them approved
• Changing the fieldwork plans if circumstances mean that the fieldwork cannot be carried out safely
• Making relevant safety equipment available
• Instructing fieldwork participants in the work, the risk assessment, the contingency plans and the safety equipment
• Controlling that work is done in a safe manner
• Ensuring that the participants have attended any legally required courses to be able to carry out the Work¨
• Ensuring that the participants only work independently or alone, if you consider that this is safe
• Sending any participants home if they do not follow your instructions
• Reporting any near miss incidents or accidents to your local work environment organisation
• Being aware of and making your fieldwork participants aware of the insurance they need to take out
• Ensuring fieldwork complies with the work environment legislation of the country where the fieldwork takes place
• Setting up a fieldwork work environment group in cases where this is legally required
• Making participants aware of the conditions that are described in the guidelines
• To sign a consent form if the field work involves a trip to a possible risk area as DTU employee

Risk assessment and contingency plans

For the risk assessment, you must think through all the fieldwork phases from departure to return, and consider the following:

• Where is there a particular risk?

• What can you do to minimise the risk?

• Go through the risky phases and processes and make sure suitable safety precautions are in place.

• Consider whether solo work is appropriate.

• Assess the competences of the fieldwork participants.

• Make a contingency plan if something should go wrong

Written instructions regarding specific hazardous areas must be created and these then need to be approved by your local work environment organisation as well as the DTU fieldwork participants’ employer or advisor.

Instruction and control obligations

You must ensure that all fieldwork participants receive sufficient and appropriate instruction regarding the risks and the safety precautions related to the fieldwork and you must make the participants able to carry out the work in a danger-free way. Instruction must be carried out regularly and be adapted to the recipient (age, language, competences, experience etc.). In this regard, you can use your risk assessment and contingency plan for guidance and inspiration.

You are obliged to ensure that the participants have understood the instructions. Written instructions, for example that are signed by the participants, do not document that the employees have received sufficient instruction or understood it.

You need to ensure that the participants carry out the work in a way that does not present safety or health risks, and that they follow the instructions. You can choose to let another person carry out the task of training, instruction and supervision on your behalf. However, it will always be your responsibility that this happens and that the person who carries out the task has the necessary qualifications. You are obliged to carry out instruction and supervision, even though only one or two people take part in the fieldwork. 

If you do not provide instruction or carry out control, you will be found to be acting in a wrongful way. If a fieldwork participant fails to follow instructions, it is up to the specific assessment whether the person has received sufficient instruction. The fieldwork leader/employer and the fieldwork participant can be fined for not giving enough instruction or for ignoring instruction.

During fieldwork in Denmark, work environment legislation makes it the employer’s responsibility to ensure that employed staff receive instruction and to control that instructions are followed, so the work takes place in a way that meets health and safety requirements. It is recommended that Danish work environment legislation is followed as far as possible during fieldwork abroad. During fieldwork abroad, the work environment legislation of the country where the fieldwork takes place applies, and the fieldwork is therefore subject to these laws on the same terms as for the country’s own citizens. You must familiarise yourself with these laws.

When does fieldwork require work environment organisation?

According to work environment legislation, work environment cooperation at the temporary workplace (fieldwork workplace) must take place in a work environmental organisation (WEO) if ”the individual employer has at least five employees on location and if the work takes place for a period of at least 14 days”. This means that a chosen work environment representative and an appointed work environment leader are required, and that the same rules apply as for the rest of the work environmental organisation (WEO).