How to Evaluate If Your Workplace Is Meeting OSHA Regulations
June 19, 2024
How to Evaluate If Your Workplace Is Meeting OSHA Regulations
The Occupational Safety & Health Act (OSHA) is a key component of the United States Department of Labor. It’s designed to ensure the safety and health of workers by enforcing strict safety standards—and providing the training, education, and support employers need to meet these requirements. As an employer, it’s your responsibility to create and maintain a workplace that complies with all OSHA regulations. And with safety standards evolving every year across different industries, it can be a major challenge to keep pace. Fortunately, the team at Stronghold Safety Engineering is here to help.
Over the past 15 years, Stronghold Safety Engineering has been helping businesses create safer and more productive workplaces for their employees. Through a range of top-class safety products and machine safeguarding services, we connect organizations with customized solutions that maximize consistency, efficiency, and safety. Today, we’ll be talking through some key factors to consider when evaluating how well your workplace meets OSHA regulations. This is a great place to start if you’re looking for a general outline on how you should structure your evaluation—and a handful of helpful resources straight from the Department of Labor.
OSHA Responsibilities for Employers
Before you start any safety evaluation, it’s important to understand what OSHA demands from your business. The Department of Labor offers a great general outline of employer responsibilities here. Read on for a more thorough explanation of these requirements—and steps your business can take to meet and exceed them.
1. Remove all serious recognized hazards from your workplace.
This is one of the first and most important OSHA regulations for employers. Depending on your industry, you may be forced to account for a wide variety of safety hazards—particularly if your work involves dangerous chemicals or materials. While it might seem overwhelming at first glance, but the Department of Labor has a detailed Hazard Identification and Assessment guide you can use to understand whether you’re complying with this rule or not. This resource includes six action items you can follow to find, prioritize, and eliminate recognized hazards from your workspaces.
2. Provide education & safety tools in accordance with OSHA standards.
One of the trickiest parts about OSHA standards is that they’re unique across industries. After all, you wouldn’t hold an agricultural enterprise to the same specific rules as a construction company. Thankfully, the Department of Labor outlines its standards spanning different industries via the OSHA website. You can use this page to find a list of OSHA standards pertaining to your specific industry to determine which safety resources you’re expected to offer in your workplace.
There are also a handful of general safety and educational items employers are expected to place in prominent locations for employees. For example, all employers are required to post the OSHA poster (or state-plan equivalent) in an easily accessible location to keep employees informed of their rights and responsibilities—as well as your own as an employer. Employers are also expected to inform employees on the presence of potential hazards via signage or color codes to minimize the risk of accidents and exposure.
In short, employers are expected to offer all of the tools employees need to understand and execute their work safely. This could include everything from OSHA safety products to multilingual training programs. (OSHA requires employers to provide training resources tailored to the language of each employee.) These regulations also encompass employee access to medical examinations, medical/exposure records, and more.
3. Keep detailed records of all work-related illnesses & injuries.
With the exception of some low-risk industries, all employers with more than 10 employees are required to keep records of serious work-related illnesses and injuries. This does not include minor injuries (requiring first aid only). Bear in mind that OSHA maintains very specific definitions of what qualifies as first aid and recordable injury/illness.
Generally, any work-related illness or injury that results in a fatality, multiple days away from the workplace, or loss of consciousness must be recorded and reported to the Department of Labor. There are more specific rules pertaining to diagnosed conditions, medical removals, cracked bones, and much more—so be sure to read up here for exact definitions and reporting requirements to look out for. That page also details the proper way to electronically submit records, as well as new regulations that were issued in 2018.
Make OSHA Compliance Easy With Stronghold Safety
If you need help with ensuring that your business is meeting all OSHA regulations, then be sure to reach out to Stronghold Safety today. We can connect you with all the resources you need to create safe, productive, and fully compliant workspaces for your employees—including machine safeguarding assessments to help you mitigate and manage risks. You can also contact us for more information on OSHA safety products, OSHA emergency stop requirements, or your industry’s regulations in general. We’re always here to help.