Translation of HSE documentation and occupational safety rules: instructions, risk assessments, SDS sheets

An occupational safety document is the only one in a plant where a translation error directly affects human life. An instruction that the operator understands only partially is not an instruction. Georgian legislation and international HSE standards unanimously require that safety information be provided to the employee in a language they understand. We translate HSE documentation for the manufacturing, construction, energy and oil and gas sectors with the precision and uniformity that the labour inspectorate, a foreign auditor and, above all, the worker themselves require.

Which documents fall within this area

• Occupational safety instructions by profession, workplace and type of work.
• Risk assessment documents: hazard identification, risk matrices, JSA (Job Safety Analysis), HAZOP and HAZID reports.
• Permit to Work system: hot work, confined space entry, work at height, energy isolation (LOTO).
• Safety data sheets (SDS/MSDS): the 16-section format in accordance with GHS and REACH Annex II.
• Emergency response plans: evacuation, fire, chemical spill, first aid.
• HSE policies, manuals and procedures within ISO 45001 and ISO 14001 systems.
• Incident investigation reports, root cause analysis, corrective action plans.
• Training materials: induction training, toolbox talk topics, tests, video subtitles.
• Safety signs and posters with ISO 7010 pictograms.

The legal context in Georgia

The Organic Law of Georgia on Occupational Safety obliges the employer to provide the employee, in an understandable form, with information on workplace risks and protective measures, to conduct briefings and to keep risk assessment documentation. During an inspection the Labour Inspection Service requests exactly these documents in Georgian. At the same time, international companies and projects financed by international financial institutions (IFC, EBRD) keep their HSE documentation in English, while contractors and workers speak Georgian. This two-way requirement creates a constant need for the same document to exist in two languages with identical content.

The special requirements of HSE terminology

The hierarchy of controls and standard concepts

An HSE system rests on fixed concepts: the hierarchy of controls (elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, personal protective equipment), hazard and risk, incident and accident, near miss and unsafe condition. These pairs must be clearly distinguished from each other in Georgian and used with one equivalent throughout the documentation. If "hazard" is one word in one document and "risk" in another, the company's risk assessment system falls apart logically.

The imperative form and modality

A safety instruction is written in commands. We keep a uniform imperative form throughout the document, and carry over "shall", "must", "should" and "may" with fixed Georgian equivalents, because it is exactly these that determine whether an action is mandatory or recommended. Prohibitions ("never", "do not") are translated so that no room for ambiguity remains.

The formal structure of SDS sheets

A safety data sheet consists of 16 mandatory sections, while the hazard statements (H-phrases) and precautionary statements (P-phrases) are standardised text coded under the GHS system. We do not translate these phrases freely: we use fixed, systematically agreed Georgian versions that are identical in every SDS sheet of one company. CAS numbers, physical and chemical data and occupational exposure limits stay unchanged.

Visual material and workplace documents

HSE documentation is often hung on the work site or handed to the worker as a pocket card. So the translation is done together with the layout:

• ISO 7010 pictograms stay unchanged, only the accompanying text is translated;
• signal words (DANGER, WARNING, CAUTION) are translated with the same fixed equivalents as in the manuals area;
• checklists and permit forms keep their field structure, so that the bilingual version fits on one sheet;
• training presentations and video subtitles are translated within the time codes and the slide text limit.

Bilingual documentation on international projects

The HSE plan of an oil and gas or infrastructure project is, as a rule, written in English and translated into Georgian, while incident reports and training logs are written in Georgian and returned in English. This two-way flow is served by one shared terminology base and translation memory, which ensures that a report written months later uses the same terms with which the HSE plan was translated. This is critical at an audit, when the inspector compares the English plan with the Georgian instruction.

Typical errors we avoid

• interchanging "hazard" and "risk", which breaks the logic of the risk matrix;
• merging "accident" and "incident" into one term, which collapses the reporting categories;
• inconsistent names of personal protective equipment between the instruction and the poster;
• free paraphrase of H- and P-phrases, which loses compliance with the GHS system;
• replacing the imperative form with a descriptive one ("the worker wears a helmet" instead of "wear a helmet"), which turns an instruction into a recommendation.

The process

1. Analysis of the documents and integration of the client's existing HSE terminology (if any) into the base.
2. Agreeing the glossary with the HSE manager.
3. Translation by a translator with experience in industrial safety or the construction sector.
4. Editing: control of terminological uniformity, modality and the imperative form.
5. Layout in forms, posters and presentations, visual check.
6. Delivery and handover of the translation memory to the client for subsequent updates.

HSE documentation is closely linked to the equipment's operating manuals and to the ISO 45001 certificate, at whose audit exactly these documents are checked. That is why we process all three in one terminology base.

Frequently asked questions