Short answer: name the legal duty each training meets, attach a per-person export of completions with dates, say honestly whether each one repeats, and explain how new hires are covered. The template below does most of the writing.
A customer sends over a vendor questionnaire, or a prequalification program asks for your safety documentation before you can bid. Somewhere in it: "Provide evidence that all personnel have completed required health and safety and accessibility training." You know your team did the training. Showing it is a different job.
Why you are being asked at all
This is rarely about doubting you. Your client is managing their own exposure, so their procurement team is documenting the diligence they performed on you. The same instinct shows up in prequalification programs that many Ontario buyers rely on, and in accessibility commitments carried down the supply chain.
The practical consequence: your answer becomes part of their file. Vague answers create follow-up questions; documented answers end the thread.
What these questionnaires typically want
- A named policy — usually health and safety, and workplace violence and harassment — with a review date showing it is current.
- Completion evidence, not enrolment. "Everyone is assigned the training" is not the same claim as "everyone finished it," and procurement teams have learned to tell the difference.
- Coverage of the people actually on their work, including anyone who joined since the contract started.
- A date. An undated attestation is worth very little; a per-person completion date is worth a lot.
- Sometimes accessibility — AODA training under O. Reg. 191/11, s. 7, particularly where your people interact with the public on the client's behalf.
How to answer well
- Answer the mandate, not the vibe. Name the legal duty you are meeting and cite it — "basic occupational health and safety awareness training under O. Reg. 297/13" reads far better than "annual safety training."
- Attach a completion export. A list of people and their completion dates, exported from a system rather than typed into a form, is the single strongest thing you can send.
- State your interval honestly. If a mandate is one-time, say it is one-time. Claiming an annual refresher that does not exist creates a commitment you will be audited against next year.
- Say how new hires are covered. Buyers are specifically worried about the person who started last month. "New employees are assigned automatically the day they're added, with their own due date" is the answer they want.
- Keep the response. The same questionnaire, or one very like it, will arrive from the next client.
A caution on over-claiming
It is tempting to tick every box. Do not attest to training you cannot evidence, or to certifications you do not hold — some sector-specific programs, such as working at heights training for construction workers who may use fall protection, must come from a Chief Prevention Officer approved provider (O. Reg. 297/13, s. 7), and a general awareness course is not a substitute. An honest "not applicable to our scope of work, here is what does apply" is a better answer than an unsupportable yes.
An answer you can copy
Adapt the brackets and delete anything that doesn't apply to you.
Health and safety awareness training. Every worker completes the Ministry of Labour's Worker Health and Safety Awareness in 4 Steps program after starting work, as required by O. Reg. 297/13, s. 1. Supervisors complete Supervisor Health and Safety Awareness in 5 Steps within one week of starting to supervise (s. 2). This is one-time training. As of [date], [number] of our [number] current workers have completed it. The attached export lists each person and their completion date.
Workplace violence and harassment. Our policies were last reviewed on [date] and are posted [in the workplace / on our intranet]. Every worker receives information and instruction on them and signs an acknowledgment when they join. The attached export shows each acknowledgment with its date and the policy version.
Accessibility (AODA) training. Employees and volunteers are trained on the accessibility standards that apply to their work and on the Human Rights Code as it applies to people with disabilities, as required by O. Reg. 191/11, s. 7. [Number] of [number] have completed it.
New hires. New employees are assigned this training when they join, with a due date, and we follow up until it is complete. [Number] people joined in the last [period]; their status is in the export.
Turning a scramble into an export
Almost every item above is answered by a record rather than by more training. Ethica is built for that: Ontario's mandatory courses and policy acknowledgments ready to assign, delivered by email link with no employee accounts, completions recorded per person with dates and policy versions, new hires picked up automatically when training is set to go to everyone or a role, and a CSV, or a zip of each employee's certificates and signed acknowledgments, you can attach to the questionnaire the same day it arrives.
See what Ontario requires and the proof each mandate demands, or check which duties apply to your business.