Ekaterina Lutenko
Internal Auditor
Scheduled checks of State Labour Inspectorate are carried out with the use of a risk-based approach, which assigns a certain risk category to the organization’s activities, which determines the frequency of inspections. Rostrud published a list of employers whose activities are classified as significant and high risk. The timetable of conducting scheduled checks for 2021 will be formed on its basis.
In total, the official website presents two lists catalogued by region: the first one includes companies whose activities as of July 1 of the current year are classified as high risk, and the second one – companies of significant risk.
The procedure for placing the activities of organizations or facilities used by them into a particular risk category is established in the Rules approved by the Decree No. 806 of the Government of the Russian Federation dated August 17, 2016. At the moment there are six categories:
| Risk category | Hazard class | Specifics of conducting scheduled checks |
| Extremely high | 1st class | Once a year |
| High | 2nd class | Once every two years |
| Significant | 3rd class | Once every three years |
| Average | 4th class | Not more frequently than once every 5 years |
| Moderate | 5th class | Not more frequently than once every 6 years |
| Low | 6th class | Checks are not conducted |
Assigning a particular risk category to a company is carried out based on figures of potential harm to the life and health of employees. The rules for calculating such figures, their numerical value and other criteria are established by separate Regulations depending on the type of activities that the company performs.
If the organization’s activities may be placed into different risk categories, then a higher category will be assigned. If the hazard class is not assigned to it, then this activity is placed into a low category in the default mode. However, one criterion is not enough to classify an employer, and there are others.
A special form has also been approved that allows calculating the figure of potential risk of causing of harm based on:
The latter criterion is calculated for each employer based on the following figures:
In order to understand for which violations the organization is assigned a certain degree of risk, State Labour Inspectorate has developed a special check list for employers, which can be found at the link.
If the organization does not agree with the assigned risk category, it has the right to submit an application for changing the category to the Rostrud authorities specifying the following information:
Documents, confirming that the organization’s activities may be placed into a hazard category that it claims to be placed into, should be attached to the application. The term for consideration of the application is 15 working days from the date of its receipt. Then, the corresponding authority sends the company a notification of the decision made within three days.
Acsour’s experts recommend the companies to check themselves for presence in the lists, as well as to conduct a HR audit in order to improve working conditions. These procedure will help to verify the correctness of maintaining of personnel records and the compliance with requirements of the employment legislation. If not to take into account the constant changes in legislation in the HR management of the company, errors will appear, which may lead to significant fines as a result of State Labour Inspectorate checks.
Tatiana Modeeva, Acsour’s General Director, for RAEX:
“One of the main trends in 2019 was the growth of State Labour Inspectorate checks as compared with previous years: if, in 2018, the total number of detected offences was about 85,000 – 90,000 per year in Russia taken as a whole, in the first half of 2019, the number reached a figure of 66,738 checks (excluding Crimea), and the total amount of administrative fines imposed for the half year was 1,771,560,000 rubles. Such checks frighten business, because they entail not only temporary labour costs, but also probable financial losses, and sometimes even damage to the company’s reputation”.
Internal Auditor
