Online Delivery of On-Hire Safety & Health Training — Legal Requirements and Practical Pitfalls

TL;DR

• The MHLW formally permits online delivery of safety and health training under its notice dated January 25, 2021.
• However, "just playing a video" is not enough — there are 4 required conditions.
• Identity verification, comprehension check, recordkeeping, and a Q&A channel — drop any one and you risk non-compliance.
• Administrative overhead drops below classroom training, but if you design it wrong, it becomes a hollow formality.
• When picking e-learning, watch out for services that only log video views. A mechanism to identify the learner is necessary.

"Can we do on-hire safety and health training online?" is a question we hear often from HR officers. The answer: legally, yes. But just running a Zoom playback or logging video views in an e-learning system isn't enough.

This article is aimed at HR and general affairs staff considering e-learning. We organize the legal basis through the practical pitfalls — the points actually asked about on the ground.

1. Is online delivery really allowed? — checking the legal basis

Article 59, paragraph 1 of the 労働安全衛生法 (Industrial Safety and Health Act) defines the obligation to provide on-hire training, but it does not specify the format. Classroom training, OJT, and online delivery are all treated equally under the law.

This is the point: against a long-standing practice that interpreted "in-person as the principle," the MHLW issued a clear notice dated January 25, 2021.

1-1. The MHLW notice (January 25, 2021)

Its official title is "Treatment of education under the Industrial Safety and Health Act delivered via the internet" (基発0125第3号 / Notice No. 3 of January 25, 2021). With classroom training made difficult by the pandemic, the notice formally permits online formats.

The notice states:

Education delivered through simultaneous, two-way methods via the internet, or through methods involving the viewing of pre-recorded videos, may, as long as the prescribed conditions are satisfied, be treated as equivalent to education conducted in person.

What matters here is the qualifying clause "as long as the prescribed conditions are satisfied."

'Just playing a video' is not accepted

The notice does not say "anything online is fine." It assumes that conditions such as learner identification, comprehension verification, and recordkeeping are met. Delivery that lacks these conditions may be evaluated under the law as "not having provided training."

1-2. Difference between on-hire training and special training

On-hire training (ISHA Article 59, paragraph 1) and special training (same article, paragraph 3) have slightly different online requirements. This article focuses on on-hire training; special training has stricter requirements — including measures against fast-forwarding and in-person delivery of practical skill components. Forklift, rigging, full-harness, and similar special training must be treated as a separate topic from on-hire training.

2. The 4 required conditions for online delivery

Organizing the notice and the Industrial Safety and Health Regulations, the required conditions are these four.

Quite a few e-learning products on the market do not satisfy all of these. Let's look at each from a practical lens.

2-1. Condition 1: Coverage of the 8 statutory items

After the April 2024 (Reiwa 6) revision, all 8 items are mandatory. The pre-revision omission clause has been abolished, so the following must be delivered regardless of industry.

1. Hazards or harmfulness of machinery and raw materials, and their handling
2. Performance and handling of safety devices and protective equipment
3. Work procedures
4. Inspections at the start of work
5. Causes and prevention of work-related diseases
6. Maintaining order, organization, and cleanliness
7. Emergency measures and evacuation in case of accidents
8. Other matters necessary for the work

For details, see the companion article "On-Hire Safety & Health Training: The Complete Guide."

2-2. Condition 2: Identifying the learner

The biggest point of contention online is how to prove "it was actually this person who watched the video". In a classroom you can confirm attendance with your own eyes; online, you cannot.

Three mechanisms are commonly used in practice.

Step 1: ID/password authentication

Have learners log in with individual accounts at the start. This is the minimum form of identification, but it cannot prevent account sharing.

Step 2: Facial recognition / photo capture

Take periodic photos via webcam during the session and match against a registered face photo. Major Japanese e-learning services such as SAT, CIC, and Labona implement this. The most reliable mechanism.

Step 3: Random comprehension checks

Insert verification questions at random points and at the end of chapters. This catches learners who leave the screen with the video running.

When a Labour Standards Inspection Office asks "did the person themselves take this training?", only a service with mechanism 2 or 3 (or better) can answer accountably. A service offering only mechanism 1 risks being judged as failing to satisfy the condition.

2-3. Condition 3: Verifying comprehension

"Training was delivered" and "the learner understood" are different things. The notice requires an opportunity to verify comprehension. Implementations:

• End-of-chapter multiple-choice quizzes (advance only at 70–80% or higher)
• Completion test (explicit pass mark; retakes for those who fail)
• Free-text articulation of understanding (optional)

"Watched the video to the end" ≠ "understood." Only after passing a test can you say you have fulfilled the training duty.

2-4. Condition 4: 3-year recordkeeping

Under Article 38 of the Industrial Safety and Health Regulations, on-hire training records must be retained for 3 years. Online delivery is no exception.

The items to record are:

E-learning's automatic saving is dramatically easier than paper records. Records for departed employees are also archived automatically, ready for immediate presentation in an audit.

3. Designing to prevent "just showed it" — practical cautions

The pitfall of online delivery is a design that marks completion just because the video was played. This may not be illegal per se, but it becomes a serious problem from a duty-of-care perspective.

3-1. Fast-forward and skip

For on-hire training, there is no explicit anti-fast-forward requirement as there is for special training. Even so, it is safer to choose a stricter design in practice.

Concretely:

• Videos play at normal speed only (no fast-forwarding)
• Skipping a chapter prevents completion
• Detect a learner leaving their seat (responsiveness of the facial-recognition camera)

To be candid, an e-learning product without these features will struggle to explain itself during an Inspection Office visit.

3-2. A channel for questions

The notice also calls for "ensuring an opportunity for questions and answers." For e-learning, the common form is:

• Provide an email or chat contact for questions after the session
• Make the contact for the safety and health manager visible inside the materials
• Maintain a companion FAQ

— in other words, a completely one-way design is not acceptable.

3-3. Simultaneous two-way vs. on-demand

The notice permits both "simultaneous two-way" (live delivery via Zoom and similar) and "viewing of pre-recorded video." Their characteristics:

For companies hiring mid-career staff on a rolling basis, on-demand is the realistic choice.

4. When online delivery fits, and when it doesn't

Not all on-hire training translates to online. Frankly, depending on the content, classroom training is more effective. Here are the practical fits and unfits.

Where online delivery fits

• Continuous mid-career hiring (multiple people per month or more)
• Multi-site / nationwide operations where coordinating a classroom is hard
• Need to deliver to foreign workers in multiple languages
• Staffing companies serving multiple dispatch destinations

Where online alone is insufficient

• Work involving practical skills training, such as high-elevation work or heavy machinery
• Explaining procedures that depend on the company's specific machines or processes
• Workers who struggle with Japanese reading and writing (audio/visual assistance needed)

For work involving practical skills, a realistic hybrid is to learn the 8 statutory basics online, and add on-site, hands-on training.

5. Three common failure patterns

Finally, three failures that often surface after rolling out e-learning. If you are evaluating a tool, please check these in advance.

Failure 1: Weak identity verification

You picked a service that only logs views. In reality, a different employee was taking the course. When the Inspection Office asks "what is your evidence the person themselves took this?", you can't answer, and you get guidance to redo the training.

Failure 2: Insufficient multilingual support

You had foreign workers watch Japanese-only materials and took the completion test in Japanese too. "Marked as completed without actually understanding" has led to case law on breach of the duty of care for safety. For multilingual support, see "Foreign Worker Safety & Health Training: The Complete Guide."

Failure 3: It takes too long to pull records

When the Inspection Office asks "show me the last 3 years of attendance records," it takes days to find paper ledgers in a storage warehouse. With e-learning, it's minutes.

6. E-learning selection checklist

A minimum-viable checklist when selecting an e-learning product for online delivery.

Choosing based only on "cheap" or "easy to deploy" leaves you switching tools later because of missing requirements. Pick a service that clears the legal requirements by design from day one.

7. Summary

Online delivery of on-hire safety and health training is a formally accepted format thanks to the MHLW notice. It frees you from time-and-place constraints compared to classroom training, and it lends itself to multilingual delivery. At the same time, if you design it wrong, it falls into the hollow "we just played the video" trap.

Key Takeaways

1. Online delivery is formally permitted by the MHLW notice (January 25, 2021).
2. There are 4 required conditions: 8 statutory items, learner identification, comprehension verification, 3-year retention.
3. A "view-log-only" service risks failing the learner-identification condition.
4. In practice, an e-learning product with anti-fast-forward/skip and a Q&A channel is safer.
5. For work involving practical skills, a hybrid of online and on-site OJT is the realistic answer.

Related articles

• On-Hire Safety & Health Training: The Complete Guide
• Reiwa 6 (April 2024) Expansion of On-Hire Safety & Health Training
• Foreign Worker Safety & Health Training: The Complete Guide

Primary references

• Industrial Safety and Health Act Article 59 (e-Gov Legal Search)
• Industrial Safety and Health Regulations Articles 35 and 38 (e-Gov Legal Search)
• Notice on Education under the Industrial Safety and Health Act Delivered via the Internet (基発0125第3号 / Notice No. 3 of January 25, 2021, MHLW)
• Safety and Health Training (Workplace Safety Site, MHLW)