Annual in our case but it is a high risk industry, driven by client needs and expectations. How many staff are we talking about? Is it in hundreds or dozens? Do you carry out high risk of fire processes or i sit very unlikely? What is the level of fire protection within the buildings / sites? These Would affect my strategy for carrying out training. Off top of my head I would look at training smaller number to be Fire wardens / marshals firstly. Do them annually as they would have more responsibility in event of emergency. Then look at general training for others, perhaps aiming for 50% of a department / building per year? Don't forget to cover all possible emergency situations though. Not just fire as the response to , for example, a gas leak would be different to a fire or bomb threat. No easy answer to this, just look at the possible events, the likelihood, how you would respond, who would respond, where they would respond, and decide from there. Easy! lol

Like roshqse & Motorhead I would suggest that it is dependant on the nature of your undertakings. If it is high hazard you may want to keep it at a yearly interval. If it is lower risk you may decide to increase the time periods. It really comes down to risk assessment and what ever you decide should be recorded in your fire risk assessment along with (i would suggest) a justification of your reasoning. you could stagger the roll out of the training, say do 1/4 of the workforce every 3 months or an 1/8 of the work force every 6 weeks or so, that will take away the need to pull everyone away from their desks once a year all at the same time. You will also need to ensure that the information is passed onto new employees straight away as part of their H&S induction. This would require alot of work on your part, but you will still be giving the required information, just not all at the same time. There are also these web based programmes where you can get employees to log onto an internet site and undertake a small training session individually and at their own convenience. I believe these programmes allow you to view who has done it and who hasn't (so that you can chase them up if they haven't). It just requires you to purchase a number of user licenses (as many as you need). These are very generick and obviously aren't brilliant for site specific details, but if it is just general principles you need to convey, then they would be ideal. It also takes allot of the onus off of you (you will just need to clarify the site specific details). However, they can be quite expensive so if you are not the purse holder you may have a battle to convince them to part with the cash. Alternatively see if you can speak to someone at the fire authority in your area and see what their thoughts are. you could even try and ask the the HSE for advice.

We do the "general awareness training" every 3 years. However, for me, the key aspects are the quarterly fire evacuation drills, a minimum of 4 per year. I consider the Evacuation drills as "training" and its effectiveness a better measure of Fire Safety Training than the general awareness training.

Following a FRA we do e-learning for all staff every two years and a two hour hands on course on alternate years for kitchen staff/fire wardens/ and workshop staff. (ie, those whose role make them at a slightly higher risk) Annual training for office staff (in a simple office only environment) is often a little over the top IMHO