OSHA Compliance: What It Means and How to Stay Compliant

Every day, about 23,000 people in the United States get injured on the job. That adds up to 8.5 million on-the-job injuries per year. 

The effect of workplace injuries and illnesses on workers, their families, and the economy is enormous. Annually, the country loses approximately $250 billion to injuries and illnesses sustained in the workplace. But that’s nothing compared to the pain, suffering, and grief that victims of these injuries go through, particularly where injuries are fatal or cause lifelong disability. 

It’s the reason OSHA compliance is so important for every business committed to protecting their most valuable asset: their employees. In this comprehensive guide, we tell you all you need to know about OSHA, from what it is to how you can stay OSHA compliant.

Read on to learn more.

OSHA Definition

The acronym OSHA stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA is a United States government agency whose responsibility is to ensure a safe and healthful work environment.

The mission of OSHA is to prevent occupational illnesses, injuries, and deaths. Since its creation in 1971, the agency has reduced work-related injuries by 40 percent. Occupational deaths have gone down by half.

Is OSHA Compliance Compulsory?

The simple answer is yes; OSHA compliance is mandatory for all employers covered by the agency. As we pointed out earlier, the primary reason OSHA was established was to ensure that all workers in the United States stay as safe as possible in their workplaces. Therefore, any organization or business that has a staff must ensure they’re OSHA compliant.

Who Does OSHA Cover?

OSHA covers the majority of private employers and their employees across all states and federal territories. The Act also covers some public sector workers. The agency covers workers either directly through the federal OSHA program or indirectly through programs run by the state that the agency funds and oversees.

The agency, however, does not cover:

• Self-employed people 
• Immediate family members of farmworkers 
• Workplace hazards that fall under different federal agencies

What If An Employer Isn’t OSHA Compliant?

Employers who aren’t OSHA compliant put their workers at serious risk of injury, illness, or worse. As we’ve already seen, the standards set by OSHA are aimed at creating the safest possible working environment. If workers do not feel safe, chances are they’ll start to file anonymous safety complaints against you to relevant authorities.

If discovered to have flouted OSHA standards, you’ll most likely receive citations by the agency. These citations can lead to heavy fines and do a number on your organization’s reputation. Attracting the best talent with a bad reputation is next to impossible.

What OSHA Compliance Requires

Given that all employers must comply with the standards and regulations provided by OSHA, it helps to know what it means safety compliance means. Simply put, OSHA compliance means adhering to the rules provided by the agency. Let’s look at these rules in the next section.

Responsibilities Of Employers

As an employer covered by OSHA, you have a responsibility to make sure that your employees have a safe working environment that’s free of any recognized hazards. You have a duty to follow all applicable health and safety standards by OSHA.

Take the time to identify and deal with all health and safety hazards. Make any possible physical or engineering changes to your working conditions. For instance, if there are harmful fumes in your workplace that pose a risk to your workers, improve ventilation, or switch to safer chemicals.

Other requirements include:

• Ensure that the official OSHA Job Safety and Health poster is displayed on-premises.
• Alert workers of any chemical hazards through training, information sheets, labels, alarms, and so on.
• Train your employees adequately on safety
• Maintain accurate records of workplace injuries and illnesses
• Conduct the required exposure testing in your workplace
• Provide OSHA approved personal protection equipment (PPE) at no cost
• Provide required medical testing to employees
• If you are a contractor, maintain at least one MSDS book for each job site. This MSDS book contains essential OSHA information for both employers and their employees.
• Post OSHA citations and data related to injuries and illnesses where workers can see them.
• Notify OSHA of any workplace fatality within 8 hours or injury that leads to hospitalization, loss of an eye, or amputation within 24 hours.
• Abstain from retaliating against any worker who exercises their rights under the law, particularly their right to report an occupational fatality, illness, or injury.

Always remember that under the OSHA Act, workers are entitled to a work environment that poses no risk of serious harm to them.

Who Benefits From OSHA Compliance?

The primary beneficiaries of OSHA compliance are your employees. Working in a safe, healthful environment is a huge motivator for the 21st-century employee. No one wants to work in a place that poses any kind of risk to their health.

OSHA compliance has significant benefits for your company as well. You get to reduce absenteeism and high turnover that result from occupational injuries and illnesses. Your Workers Compensation and Liability insurance will also be lower, and your reputation remains stellar.  

What Next?

Now that you know what OSHA compliance means and how beneficial it can be for your organization, it’s time to get compliant. The best place to start is by evaluating the state of your current safety program.

Take a close look at your safety policies and practices. Do they follow the standards for workplace safety set by OSHA? If not, take measures to update them right away.

Remember, there are many resources that can help you make your workplace safer, including the MSDS book we mentioned earlier. Where you feel stuck, contact OSHA. The agency always provides free consultations to organizations that want to achieve compliance.

Staying OSHA Compliant Is Good For Your Business

Every employer knows that their employees need to work in a safe work environment to remain productive.  Maintaining OSHA compliance is the most effective way of ensuring that workers are as safe as possible while they’re in the workplace.

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