The new State-Regions Agreement (ASR) of 17 April 2025 regulates safety training with precise deadlines: the transitional period of 12 months (until 24 May 2026) for the adaptation of courses is about to end, while there is still a full year available for the mandatory training of the employer (24 May 2027). With its entry into force, on 24 May of last year, the new State-Regions Agreement has pushed the Italian prevention system to take a step that goes far beyond simple regulatory rationalization. The text, now operational, does not only merge the previous Agreements but deeply redesigns the way in which training is conceived, planned, governed and verified.
The Agreement was created as a framework text, designed to bring order to a fragmented and often contradictory landscape. Its deeper meaning, however, emerges only if it is read as an attempt to realign mandatory training with the real complexity of contemporary work, where safety does not depend only on the knowledge of rules, but on the quality of decisions, behaviors and organizational relationships.
From the sum of courses to a coherent training system
One of the distinctive features of the new Agreement is its overall architecture. Its sections and annexes do not constitute a mere bureaucratic structure, but outline a system in which general organization, training courses, updates, teaching methodologies, recognition of credits and control activities are held together by a logic of coherence.
What does this mean in practical terms? That training is no longer reducible to a list of hours to be delivered, but is brought back to an intentional, documented and verifiable process. The central role attributed to the training project represents a significant change of pace: each course must be designed in relation to the company context, the specific risks and the profile of the recipients, overcoming the idea of standardized training indifferent to the real working conditions.
It is a step that brings safety training closer to the more mature models of corporate learning, where effectiveness is given by the ability to impact organizational behaviors.
Training as a governance choice
The Agreement also redefines in an innovative way the training responsibilities within the company. The employer is no longer only the subject obliged to “have” the training carried out, but becomes the guarantor of the coherence of the entire system. The possibility, explicitly introduced, of directly organizing training for workers, supervisors and managers, after the involvement of bilateral bodies or after the lapse of fifteen days, must be read in this light.
È chiaramente una chiamata alla responsabilità organizzativa: la formazione diventa infatti parte integrante delle scelte di gestione del rischio, e non un’attività esternalizzata e scollegata dalla vita aziendale. Questo implica, per le imprese, lo sviluppo di competenze progettuali e gestionali nuove, capaci di tenere insieme normativa, organizzazione del lavoro e cultura della prevenzione.
Lo stesso rapporto tra datore di lavoro e RSPP assume una valenza più strategica. La formazione del datore di lavoro, soprattutto quando svolge direttamente il ruolo di RSPP, non è più solo un adempimento, ma uno strumento di allineamento decisionale, che consente di comprendere le implicazioni organizzative delle scelte in materia di sicurezza.
Training providers and the training project
The new State-Regions Agreement also defines in detail who can provide training and updating in the field of health and safety at work, identifying three categories of subjects: institutional bodies, authorized by law to carry out training activities; accredited subjects, in possession of regional accreditation and at least three years of documented experience in safety training, with the exception of courses for workers, supervisors and managers for which only accreditation is sufficient; other qualified subjects, including authorized Interprofessional Funds, recognized Bilateral Bodies and comparatively most representative trade union organizations.
Sul piano organizzativo, l’Accordo introduce l’obbligo, per ogni soggetto formatore, di predisporre un progetto formativo strutturato, che descriva obiettivi, contenuti, articolazione didattica, metodologie adottate, strumenti di supporto e criteri di verifica dell’apprendimento e della qualità formativa.
Viene inoltre ridotto da 35 a 30 il numero massimo di partecipanti per corso e viene formalizzato l’obbligo di tenuta del registro presenze, in formato cartaceo o elettronico, come elemento essenziale di tracciabilità del percorso formativo.
Durations, updates and credits: the end of automatism
On the content level, the Agreement intervenes in a detailed way on durations and frequency of courses, introducing greater national uniformity. The 4 hours of general training for workers are confirmed, while specific training is structured according to the level of risk, with differentiated durations and five-year updates.
Il rafforzamento più evidente riguarda la figura del preposto, per la quale la formazione iniziale sale a 12 ore and l’aggiornamento diventa biennale. È una scelta che segnala chiaramente la centralità di questo ruolo nel presidio quotidiano della sicurezza, riconoscendo al preposto una funzione che non è solo di controllo, ma di leadership operativa.
Particolarmente rilevante è anche la disciplina dei crediti formativi. Il riconoscimento della formazione pregressa non è più automatico, ma subordinato alla verifica di coerenza sostanziale dei contenuti rispetto al nuovo impianto normativo. L’attestato, in altre parole, perde valore se non è sostenuto da un percorso realmente equivalente, segnando il passaggio da una logica amministrativa a una logica qualitativa della formazione.
Teaching methodologies: quality, traceability, participation
It is perhaps in the field of delivery methodologies that the new Agreement expresses with greater clarity its cultural ambition. In-person training remains central, especially for the practical parts, but distance training is regulated in a much more stringent way.
The mixed, or blended, mode thus takes on a strategic role. No longer a residual solution, but a recognized teaching model, capable of integrating digital learning and physical presence, reserving for the latter the moments with greater experiential value. It is a space that implicitly opens to the use of active methodologies, simulations and situated learning, particularly relevant for roles such as supervisors.
La modalità mista, o blended, assume così un ruolo strategico. Non più soluzione residuale, ma modello didattico riconosciuto, capace di integrare apprendimento digitale e presenza fisica, riservando a quest’ultima i momenti a maggiore valore esperienziale. È uno spazio che apre implicitamente all’uso di metodologie attive, simulazioni e apprendimento situato, particolarmente rilevanti per figure come i preposti.
Assessment of learning and training effectiveness
Another element of discontinuity is the introduction of the obligation of final learning assessment for all courses, including updates. The assessment becomes a structural requirement of the training path. Alongside this is the growing attention to the verification of training effectiveness in the work context, recalling evaluation models that look at the ability to transfer the skills learned into daily practice.
This change of paradigm brings safety training closer to the models of learning analytics and impact measurement already widespread in other areas of professional training.
Supervisors, HR and RLS: nodes of a shared culture
The figure of the supervisor emerges as one of the pivots of the new system. The increase in hours, the frequency of updates and the attention to behavioral content indicate the intention to transform the supervisor into a facilitator of the safety culture, rather than a simple executor of controls.
Alongside this figure, the new Agreement indirectly strengthens the role of HR functions and RLS. For human resources, safety training can no longer be managed as an administrative practice separate from the rest of the skills development policies. For RLS, the greater structuring of training paths and verification systems opens spaces for more qualified participation in reading needs and evaluating training effectiveness.
Training that anticipates risk
Read as a whole, the 2025 State-Regions Single Agreement gives the image of a training that tries to anticipate risk, instead of chasing it. The elimination of any ambiguity on the timing of training for new hires, with the clear principle that one cannot work in the presence of risks without preventive training, goes exactly in this direction.
The role of Viasky
Training becomes an organizational infrastructure of prevention: an ecosystem of continuous, traceable and verifiable learning, which involves the employer, RSPP, supervisors, HR and workers’ representatives. No longer a sequence of courses, but a cultural device that attempts to realign rules, behaviors and decisions.
Anche il ruolo dei partner formativi cambia, dovendo essi saper leggere e interpretare la cultura della sicurezza dell’organizzazione. Viasky, con oltre trent’anni di esperienza nella formazione alla salute e sicurezza sul lavoro, affianca le aziende nel ripensare i propri percorsi formativi, partendo da soluzioni a catalogo per arrivare a progettazioni personalizzate, coerenti con il contesto, i rischi e l’identità organizzativa e offrendo le competenze IT per supportare questa complessa innovazione. Non come fornitore di corsi, ma come strumento nelle mani dell’organizzazione, consapevole che anche chi eroga formazione debba saper comprendere e rispettare la cultura della sicurezza dell’azienda cliente.
