Knowing what can trigger an OSHA inspection can help you predict the likelihood of one taking place at your facility.
Because OSHA has relatively few inspectors – and because recent political pressure from Washington has been to cooperate with employers – the main focus of spot inspections is on employers who have histories of workplace injuries, or non-compliance. Beyond this, inspectors tend to focus on industries (often defined by SIC codes) that have bad safety records. These industries include construction, petrochemical and general chemical production, food processing, textiles and heavy manufacturing. In addition, vulnerability to inspections generally reflects regional trends. For example, poultry processing plants in the southeast get inspected a lot, as do oil companies in the southwest.
OSHA has established a system of priorities based on the "worst first" approach under the category of "imminent danger" – the reasonable certainty that a danger exists that is expected to cause death or serious physical harm. From highest to lowest, these priorities include:
1. Catastrophes & Fatal Accidents – any employee death or hospitalization of three or more employees.
2. Employee Complaints – when employees feel they are in imminent danger, threatened with physical harm or otherwise working in an unsafe workplace.
3. Programmed High-Hazard – specific industry areas have been identified as high hazard by OSHA and are targeted for inspection with greater frequency. Those establishments with lost workday rates at or above the most recently published Bureau of Labor Statistics national rates may be flagged for inspection.
4. Follow-Up Inspections – to ensure cited items have been abated.
Safety managers should consider the fact that most OSHA visitations are accident- and complaint-driven. In fact, some 60 percent to 70 percent of inspections are triggered by employee complaints alone. Knowing this, employers should focus their efforts on getting employees to call their own company representatives for safety support, not OSHA. This can be achieved by building employee confidence in your response to safety concerns.
Jeff Jensen
The Contractor Qualification Expert
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4 comments:
Many companies, like Union Pacific or the BNSF, use many of the companies who fit the profile you've described. As a consequence these companies also have to worry about OSHA requirements and are also very sensative not to get fined due to incompliance. You might find more business opportunities with these companies. You might have to give them a modified product since they may not need all the services that your main customers do.
We have several different levels of service depending on our customer's needs. We also have a very robust system that we are able to adapt for each client. We offer insurance certificate management, field audits, flagging of different requirements, exportable data for your internal systems, to name a few
This is a great idea and provides a wonderful service to the construction industry. I can not believe that nobody has thought about it before.
Your blog is very informative. The business seems to be a win-win for everyone involved.
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