Let's Take the Fear Out of OSHA Inspections!

Safety Leadership in OSHA Inspections

With several millions of job sites and facilities to cover across the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mainly prioritizes its inspections based on immediate danger situations, severe injuries, worker complaints, referrals, targeted inspections, and follow-up inspections.

The growing emphasis on safety in the workplace is a warning sign that many organizations will experience some type of OSHA inquiry, investigation, or inspection over the life of their company operations. Criminal or civil penalties have the potential to result from these inspections can be significant. Therefore, it is important for safety professionals to exhibit strong safety leadership and have a handle on the OSHA inspection process “ins and outs.”

Standard OSHA Compliance

All organizations should note that complying with OSHA regulatory requirements, especially where failure to comply can result in additional intensive monitoring of a company’s operations for future violations, should serve as an incentive to be proactive. Compliance with OSHA regulations not only has the possible potential to reduce future regulatory scrutiny, but – more importantly - it also reduces accidents or illnesses that cost money, worker wellness and lives, lowers productivity, and impacts employee morale. The bottom line is that it is good business practice to work diligently to comply with OSHA standards for each specific industry which and can aid in preventing an inspection by OSHA.

Proactive Hazard Identification and Mitigation

Many OSHA inspections are driven by employee complaints. Managers, operations personnel, and line supervisors should be constantly communicating with employees to find out about problems and hazards that are being observed by employees. If employees point out safety concerns or identify hazard conditions, safety professionals should encourage swift risk assessment and hazard correction. Hazards should be investigated, openly discussed with affected employees, and take action to correct or mitigate the hazards as quickly as possible.

Active hazard identification practices and policies are the most important way to avoid OSHA violations. An essential part of the safety process is workplace evaluation, whether by in-house inspection programs, hiring of specialized outside consultants, or use of insurance loss control personnel to assist with the hazard identification and correction process. If workers feel confident that the organizational management, safety professionals, and line supervisors are concerned about their safety when hazard issues are mentioned or arise, and those issues are handled and addressed adequately, employees may be much less inclined to call OSHA because they feel the organization has worker best interests and health and safety in mind.

OSHA’s Inspection Selection Process

In general, when OSHA visits a job site or facility, compliance inspectors are looking for hazards. Many safety professionals think that compliance inspections are looking for violations to standards, but they are looking for hazards primarily, unless the inspection is targeted or aimed to inspect for specific programmatic or National Emphasis Program (NEP) directives. In most cases, OSHA inspectors are looking for hazards and then will find the OSHA standard(s) that fits the hazards to cite. As a rule, safety professionals, management, line supervisors, and the rest of an organization’s worker population should operate under the daily rule that if something looks unsafe, it probably is, and you should fix it.

OSHA performs their inspections generally without any advance notice of showing up at a site or facility. Under special conditions, OSHA may give notice to the employer of a site or facility visit that can be less than 24 hours; usually when imminent danger situations that require correction as soon as possible could exist. In addition, it is important to note that OSHA does not just inspect workplaces during the day. Sometimes OSHA compliance officers may conduct inspections after hours or during shift work is being performed. Under special circumstances, an OSHA Area Director may feel that that advance notice would produce a more thorough or effective inspection. In these situations, an employer may get advanced warning of the time and date of an OSHA inspector’s arrival.

OSHA inspections are either programmed or unprogrammed. Programmed inspections are scheduled and inspection sites are selected based upon neutral and objective criteria. Programmed inspection typically target specific high-hazard industries, occupations, health substances, or NEP directives. Industries with higher incident rates, consistent citation history under certain categories, work types that use specific and highly hazardous toxic substances, etc.

Unprogrammed inspections are almost always the result of employee complaints of alleged unsafe working conditions or unmitigated hazards that fall under OSHA regulatory protection. Follow-up investigations will also be unprogrammed in the event the OSHA compliance officer wants to determine whether previously cited violations have been corrected as dictated.

Inspection Tips

• Be courteous to OSHA compliance inspectors and treat them with respect just like any other guest to the site or facility.
• Before refusing the right of entry to OSHA, seek the advice of competent legal counsel. OSHA may elect to get a warrant from a federal judge to gain access.
• Someone should be appointed by the employer or management to facilitate the inspection who can decide whether outside counsel is needed.
• Find out the exact reason for the inspection and have a company officer or other company designated person accompany the OSHA officer through the job site or facility.
• Make certain to limit the inspection to the exact issue that prompted the site visit.
• Be aware that organizations can ask an OSHA compliance officer to wait for a member of management or counsel to arrive before allowing OSHA access to the job site or facility.
• Carefully document everything the compliance officer is inspecting.
• Bring a camera on the walkaround and take pictures of anything noted by the OSHA compliance officer or that the OSHA compliance officer is taking pictures of during the walkaround.
• Enforce all personal protective equipment and safety rules for the OSHA compliance officers that are mandated to be followed by employees of the site or facilities.
• Note that anything said to OSHA officers can be used against the employer in a follow up OSHA administrative proceeding.
• Nonsupervisory employees can be interviewed in private; employers have the right to have a lawyer, or another manager present when a supervisory employee is interviewed.
• If managers speaking on behalf of an organization admit to a violation, then by extension, the company is admitting to the violation.
• Have legal counsel present during interviews whenever possible to assist in making sure that the OSHA compliance officers questions are clear and answered appropriately.
• If OSHA is on site or at a facility for multiple days, the organization’s responsible party should ask the OSHA compliance officer to provide a briefing at the end of each day of what they are finding and any concerns that have arisen.

Conclusion

The best offense is a good defense. Make sure that your organization is being proactive in hazard identification, risk assessment, and corrective actions long before OSHA has the potential to come knocking at the door. Know the regulatory requirements backwards, forwards, and inside out when it comes to your industry and any high hazard activities that your workers are in contact with as part of their duties. Finally, cooperation goes a long way and establishing a good relationship with the OSHA compliance officer from the beginning is a best practice.

Need help establishing and implementing proactive practices within your organization that will improve upon how prepared you are for a visit from OSHA? What about the implementation of a safety management system that ensures your compliance with OSHA regulation ahead of time?

Mariner Gulf & Consulting and Services?has extensive experience in establishing safety management systems that are intended to maximize the overall safety and health of the workplace for organizations in every industry. We can assist with the programmatic components of evaluating potential high-hazard producing processes and assist your efforts in ensuring that each and every worker is able to come home safe at the end of the day.

James Junkin, CSP, MSP, SMS, ASP, CSHO?is the Chief Executive Officer for Mariner-Gulf Consulting & Services, Chair of the Veriforce Strategic Advisory Board, master trainer, and keynote speaker.

Contact Information:

James A. Junkin, CSP, MSP, SMS, CSHO

[email protected]

504-373-0678