VANNOY:

OSHA, what all employers must know. Hi, my name is Mike Vannoy. I’m Vice President of Marketing at Asure. And this is, this is a topic that maybe if you’re in the construction industry, you know exactly what OSHA is. You live by those safety standards every single day. But an awful lot of employers, whether you’re a white collar, a retail, a blue collar industry, so many business owners don’t realize they must comply with OSHA rules that they wouldn’t even think of. So a great guest probably the perfect guest to unpack this topic today. If you’re a regular watcher of the show, you know Brian Schenker. Brian is a council at Long Island, New York, office of Jackson Lewis. Brian’s practice focuses on representing employers in a wide range of workplace matters, as well as preventative advice and counseling. Brian has extensive experience defending class action lawsuits under federal and state wage in our laws. He has successfully defended wage in our audits conducted by the US and New York State Departments of Labor. And Brian regularly handles cases before courts and administrative agencies involving claims of discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation. Welcome back to the show, Brian.

SHENKER:

Thanks for having me, Mike.

VANNOY:

So I think people, probably, everybody’s heard of osha, like I said in the, at the, at the opening. You know, if you’re in the construction business you know, probably rules <laugh>, whether it’s ladders and helmets and safety equipment and harnesses and whatnot. But, but I think so many employers don’t. So I think it’s really important, cuz this applies to all businesses. But let’s just really step back and, and make sure that we, we, we, we cover this thing comprehensively. First of all, what is osha? How ironically osha, the acronym is, both the ACT and the governing agency can bring us back to 1970 and tell us what OSHA is,

SHENKER:

Right? So in 1970, that’s when, you know, Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and it, right? That’s osha, also the Occupational Safety and Health Act. It’s almost interchangeable how we use that. But, you know, OSHA was designed to ensure a, a safe and healthful work conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards for the workplace by providing, you know, training, outreach, and education. So, you know, OSHA is an agency of the federal government. It’s responsible for promoting workplace safety nationwide, and it has the authority to oversee compliance with safety and health laws. You know, so what does OSHA really do then? You know? So it’s, it’s required by law to regulate the workplace hazards to employee safety and health. It does this through specific regulations or, you know, as we’ll discuss in a little bit the general duty clause which is, you know, widely applicable. You know, they,

VANNOY:

So Brian’s not gonna be possible to list every single use case, but maybe, maybe give some examples, especially for those folks who maybe watch the show regularly, but think, ah, maybe this one doesn’t apply to me. I dunno if, should I continue watching GI give us some examples of traditional white collar jobs in, in, in, in work environments where osha, OSHA absolutely still applies,

SHENKER:

Right? So, look, if someone, you know, falls in the workplace and injures himself, you know, that’s a potential you know, OSHA instinct for which there, there may need to be, you know, record keeping and, you know, other remediation done. Same thing with, you know, repetitive movements can cause injuries at the workplace or being struck by equipment. You know, this isn’t necessarily you know, stuff that only applies in construction or manufacturing. You know, in offices for instance, you know, there are emergency action plans we’ll discuss, which are policies regarding what happens in the event of an emergency or a fire in the workplace. You know, who, who decides, you know, where, where do we go, what happens? You know, what do we do with you know doors do we leave them open, close, you know, things like that.

 And, you know, as we’ll get to the general duty clause, you know, even, you know, in an office, right? You know, there are many things that, that can, you know, become issues, right? Ergonomics type things or you know, as we saw during the pandemic, you know, wearing you know, respirators, you know, face masks, things like that may be covered by osha. Sure. and so, you know, the main key, really the overarching theme that we’ll discuss today is that, you know, each business, whatever line of business you’re in, whatever your workplace looks like, has some hazards. And OSHA requires, you know, businesses to identify what those hazards are, and, you know, take reasonable steps to eliminate those hazards, or, you know, reduce you know, how hazardous they, they actually are.

VANNOY:

Right? Right. Okay. So maybe let’s, let’s start kind of with the basics. So, so I, I think that covers it. Like, you know, hey, we’re a law firm. Well, look, bad example, you, you, you know the law, but we’re an architectural firm. We’re an engineering firm. I mean, just think carpal tunnel typing, right? I mean, that is an actual work hazard. You got a squeaky front door that you gotta push extra hard and you, and, and you fall coming through it. That’s a, that’s a work hazard. So the, this isn’t just about safety helmets, harnesses, and ladders. This really is every aspect of your workplace. We won’t go down this rabbit hole but this was where the government was kind of playing with some covid restrictions in, in, in contemplating how far the, the government goes in a safe workplace, a safe work environment as it related to the pandemic, right? So, just to be clear, this affects everybody. So let’s maybe start with some of the beginning, the, the most remedial requirements of employers. I, I think at the top, it’s probably posting requirements, right? What, what are the obligations of an employer to notify employees of OSHA regulations?

SHENKER:

Right? Absolutely. So there are posting requirements. There’s, you know, the general OSHA poster, which is available on OSHA’s, you know, website. It informs workers of the protections offered by the act. Like other workplace posters, like, you know, the federal minimum wage posters. It needs to be displayed in a conspicuous place where employees can view it. It’s available in several different languages depending on what your workforce looks like. And, you know, in addition to that posting, you know, there’s some other requirements. For instance, if, you know your organization is ever subject to a citation from osha then OSHA requires the company to post that citation in the workplace in a prominent place, possibly even, you know, where the incident took place. And that it needs to stay there for at least three days or until, you know, the company abates the hazard. You know, those are the main posting requirements. There are other, you know, record keeping requirements and, you know, employees of access to certain documents. But generally those are, you know, the things that are gonna be posted along with, you know, so we, we’ll discuss, you know, the osha, you know, 300, 300 a and 300 you know, one forms. You know, those are also, you know, made available to employees.

VANNOY:

Brian, before, before we move on, before we move on from posting, cuz I think record keeping will hit next. So the world is changing here, right? So I think everyone is familiar. You know, as an employee, as an employer, you’ve come across it in your life. You see the, the, the safety posters near a punch clock, a time clock. Maybe it’s just in the general break room. Maybe it’s the door where employees enter a facility, right? So we’ve all seen that. Can you speak to changes or how is this evolving in in a world where workplace geography might not matter as much, right? Whether it’s completely virtual employees or flexible workplace employees, right? So if, if I’m an engineer, I work for engineering firm, or I’m an architect we already talked about, you know, workplace hazards of tripping, okay, probably not liable in my home, but if it’s typing, I’m typing all day, or I’m using a mouse in a very specific way, I’m, I’m vulnerable to say carpal tunnel. Whether I’m working from home, whether I’m working from the office, I, I will probably get to this. I’m Asureming it’s something that the employer still must notify the employee. How does the posting requirement work in that kind of a scenario?

SHENKER:

Yeah, absolutely. Re remote work is changing the way we really think about these posting requirements. You know, not just for osha, but for other ones. So you know, I think the tried and true method of posting the physical copy of the poster, you know, in the workplace, like the break room still advisable. But in addition to that what is often a good best practice is to email these posters to employees at the outset of employment, right? They’re, most of these you know, most of these forms are either readily available online or, you know, available through, you know, as sure as your payroll provider or HR service. We, you know, can provide them. So you have these electronically and especially for remote workers, but even maybe for, you know, everyone just as a good reminder of, you know, here’s, here’s these documents. There’s a reason they’re, they’re required postings because they give employees pertinent information on certain protections and obligations. So yeah, emailing them I’ve also seen, you know, companies go another step and also post them on, you know, their internal, you know, intranet. So they’re available there. Yeah. But really, you know, these are things where the more you put it out there, you know, that just shows your company’s good faith and your efforts to comply. So you really can’t overdo it with the notices.

VANNOY:

Say, say more about that. So the law requires the employer to post mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, how this go, this goes into gray area almost immediately, I would Asureme, because you can’t create a law that covers every single unique facet of every workspace, whether, whether it’s lighting or access and wall of it. I mean, where do you put things? So, so what, what is the bare minimum legal requirement for posting?

SHENKER:

So, so again, if we’re talking about actual, you know, postings about, you know, hazards in the workplace as opposed to this general poster, you know, then, right. For instance, you know, if we talk about, say, you know, hazardous materials, right? Then they, OSHA has, you know, certain standards that may be applicable, you know, to those, you know, that, you know, a hazardous chemical that’s coming in needs to, you know, have identified on it, you know, the ingredients, what the actual hazards are you know, various things like that. So, right. In additional, in addition to the general posting requirements depending on the industry that a company is in, and depending on what the hazards are you know, it may require, you know, other postings, like, like I said, for hazardous materials or for, you know, certain machinery, right? You, there might be certain information that needs to be, you know, posted on a machine, you know, identifying, you know, certain information about, you know, use or potential misuse or hazards.

So, you know, those are things where, you know, again, we’re talking about, you know, every individual, you know, company and, you know, the hazards at each company are going to be different. And this kind of, you know, also brings us back to that you know, general duty clause where you know, that requires every company to furnish employment and a place of employment that’s free from recognized hazards that are likely to cause, you know, death or serious phys physical harm. Yeah. and, you know, to comply with the safety and health standards under the act. So, you know, to take affirmative steps and, you know, post things around the workplace you know, is something that, you know, employers should be looking to do, right? I mean, the first step is obviously to, you know, recognize what the key, what, what the hazards are, right?

That’s the key to this, you know, to the company’s general obligations under osha. And then the question is, you know, for this general duty clause for things in the workplace that might not be covered by one of the industry standards, it’s really up to the company then to, you know, recognize the hazard and determine, you know, the means of, you know, correcting that and you know, how to reduce any, you know, potential hazard that exists. And so, absolutely, you know, depending on, you know, even outside of the required postings, you know, that that may include, you know, other postings around the workplace about, right. You know, you know, for instance, I can think of a restaurant, right? You have a door that goes into the kitchen and it swings both ways, right? So people could be coming in or out, they’re, you know, maybe that’s a hazard, right?

Someone could get slammed in the face by that door if someone’s coming through at the same time, maybe there needs to be steps and, you know, a notice next to the door saying, you know, watch out. You know, so something like that. Yeah. So the hazards for each workplace are so different and OSHA requires employers to really do an assessment of what those are. And yeah, you know, posting around the workplace about those hazards is certainly one of the many things employers, you know, can do. Because you want your employees to understand what the hazards are so that, you know, they can take steps and the company can take steps to protect them.

VANNOY:

Brian, what about so I got two, two threads going in my head here. I guess the first one we talked about, like remote employees. Is it safe to say, you know, one of the, one of the maddening things we talk about on this show all the time is that in one way, HR laws are pretty black and white. FLSA is black and white. Osha, the, the way the laws are written are black and white, but the way they get implemented and measured and quantified and inspected, it’s very nuanced, right? So, on one hand, there’s minimum requirements, and I think you, you did a good job explaining how it’s, it’s not as simple as what are the minimum requirements, cuz it’s gonna depend on what are the requirements based on what the hazards are, chemicals versus space versus whatever. But it, it’s, it, it’s safe to say that, like, if, if, if you get investigated, so some, an employee has an accident, they report, they get a lawyer, they sue, and you be, become inspected and audited by osha, human beings get involved, right?

And there’s a gonna be a human being employer. There’s a human being judged, there’s a human being attorneys, and good faith matters a lot here, right? So if you can say, Hey, it’s a remote employee, but you know, it’s in our employee handbook. It’s part of our onboarding process. Let me show you what that looks like. Here’s the time date stamp that they acknowledge that they received it, or even a signature that they received it. We put it in the break room here, and they don’t come in here very often, but it’s also on the back door, and it’s also on our intranet. And just the, without being obnoxious, the more you can demonstrate a good faith effort, that that means an awful lot, doesn’t it?

SHENKER:

Absolutely. So you know, we’ll discuss the, the the fines and, you know, the penalties that are available. They are large you know, especially for, you know, more serious you know, and willful and repeat violations, you know, can be, are in the six figures potentially. And those, you know, those are maximum. But one of the things that OSHA will take a look at when, you know, the they are determining the size of a penalty is right, the, the good faith you know, efforts of the employer you know, to comply. So, you know, in addition to looking at the gravity of the violation and, you know, history of previous ones, you know, good faith exhibited by the company is very important. You know, so that means, you know, a company that ignores OSHA regardless of what industry and then has a violation, right?

You’re not gonna be able to show good faith. But, you know, if you as a company you’ve gone through and you’ve assessed the workplace, tried to determine what the hazards are you’re aware of, you know, the hazards that are generally applicable to your industry, and, you know, you’ve tried to lessen those, you know, that’s something that will you know, be considered. You know, obviously it’s difficult to avoid or remove every single hazard. And that’s why, you know, a lot of things like, you know, for instance, you know personal protective equipment, you know, and I’m not speaking about that and, and with respect to, you know, covid, but more towards, you know, other you know, workplace issues, right? That, you know, things like that are almost seen as, you know, a last resort for, for safety, right? To protect the eyes face, you know, from, you know, chemicals or heat or, you know, materials or debris.

 And that the company should be looking at, you know, other proactive ways to, you know, limit the, you know, those hazards. And so, you know, OSHA will, will look at these things. So that kind of brings me to, you know, when, you know, so there are a variety of ways that, you know, an OSHA matter can, can, you know, begin you know, really, you know, triggering events can be a severe injury or illness in the workplace, or an anonymous complaint to OSHA or, you know, or referral from another, you know, federal or state agency. They’re also, you know, targeted inspections on certain, you know, high hazard industries like construction or manufacturing. And you know, that OSHA inspector is gonna come into your business usually with no advanced notice. And, you know, they’re going to walk through your, your place of employment, your, the workplace, just like the company already should have done.

And they’re not only going to identify hazards applicable to, you know, maybe whatever that injury is, but if they’re hazards they see in plain view that have not been addressed by the company right. I’m thinking about, you know, look this suck about, you know, an office. Maybe there’s wiring, there’s exposed wiring, or, you know, it, it could be, you know, a whole host of things that you mentioned, you know, a door that, you know, a heavy door that’s not working properly, right? Those are hazards that will be identified and, you know, can then become part of, you know, the, the penalties. So for employers to, you know, turn a blind eye towards these things, when OSHA eventually comes to your, your workplace, they will identify these things and then, right, whether you’ve shown good faith that that’s gonna be a big question, right? So proactively addressing these things, you know, we, we can’t avoid all accidents from happening, right? That, that’s for sure. Yeah. but, you know, you can show that it’s something you’ve, you’ve taken care to, to try to prevent.

VANNOY:

Brent, we, we’ve talked many times about how you can’t contract around the law. So, for example, you know, if more than 40 hours a week is overtime, according to flsa, you couldn’t make a side agreement with an employee to work 80 hours one week and none the next, and there would be no overtime, right? So you, you, you don’t, you don’t get to make contracts outside the law. How would it work? So let’s say you’ve posted here, you know, here’s the hazardous situation here are, here are the hazards here are the safety protocols. But the employees simply ignores whether, whether accidentally or willfully. They just simply don’t. They, they don’t heed the warnings, the signs, the guidance. What does this, how does this fall under OSHA versus say, just civil action of, of a disobedient employee, a non-compliant employee,

SHENKER:

Right? So, you know, obviously, you know, one, you know, my first response to that is, you know, managers, supervisors should be on the lookout for this, right? If, if you as an employer require, you know, certain employees to wear, you know, I, you know, goggles or something like that, or you know, take certain steps, you know, for instance, you know, in a salon, you know, wearing, you know, glove, you know, rubber latex gloves when you’re working with certain chemicals, you know, if, if as an employer you should, there should be some monitoring of that, right? That one of the elements of, you know preventing these types of hazards is oversight, right? So we don’t say, you know, in a, in a, you know, the easiest example is in manufacturing, right? We don’t just send all the employees out to the manufacturing facility, say, yep, we’ve trained, you.

Now go do it. You know, the supervisor’s gonna sit in their offices and wait till the bell rings and make sure you’ve done all your work, right? No, this supervision should be out there. You know, supervisors should be, you know, ensuring that employees are following protocol. So again, you, we can’t control all situations If employees are, you know, just ignoring these, and, you know, an accident happens, then obviously there can be a factual defense to the claim, you know, by the from osha, you know, by the employer that, Hey, we’ve taken precautions, we’ve, you know, complied with industry standards and, you know, our general duty standards. And in this instance, you know, despite our supervision, this employee, you know, took off her, her, her latex clubs and, you know, it was, you know, we, we can’t be, you know, have eyes on them 24 7.

So, you know, you would, you know, argue that it’s, it’s not the employer’s you know hazard that, you know, wasn’t identified by the employer that, you know, caused this you know, serious harm. So, you know, there are, you know, you can contest these, you know, OSHA violations certainly, and, you know, that that might be a, a basis. But I think, you know, employers shouldn’t just feel that, you know, I’ve put something in a, a policy, I’ve done my job, you know, I’ve posted a warning you know, at that entrance I’ve done my job. You know, if there are very clear instances of, you know, employees not complying or, you know, just ignoring those things, you know, the company, you know, should be aware of those to take action.

VANNOY:

Yeah. If you are, if you have the sign that says, boldly safety glasses must be worn at all times beyond this line, okay, great. Maybe that’s Kenosha requirement, but you’re not off the hook. I mean, a judge or an inspector is not gonna let you off the hook if there’s clear documentation an in evidence that supervisors don’t call you out and punish or, or hold people accountable to actually doing it, right? So the sign in of itself, right? If, if, like you said, you can’t watch everybody 24 7, if somebody had their glasses off, they get injured, okay? You’re probably, you’ll probably be okay. But if you have other employees who are gonna testify or god forbid, there’s video evidence of, you know, supervisors walking around, not holding people accountable to always having their safety glasses on. I mean, you may as well throw the sign away at that point, right? You’re, you’re on the hook to, it’s not just a

SHENKER:

Absolutely.

VANNOY:

Yeah. Not so, yeah. And

SHENKER:

I, I

VANNOY:

Think that also not the pumping requirement. You have to live it. You have to demonstrate this, right? Yeah.

SHENKER:

Yeah. And I, and I think that goes toward, you know, training and education of, of the workers too, right? That you know, OSHA has some specific training requirements for, you know, certain industries or circumstances you know, some of the more widely applicable ones, you know, we’ll discuss, you know, emergency action plans you know, every, every company should have in an emergency action plan. And, you know, employees should be trained, you know, how to assist or what to do, you know, to affect an orderly evacuation of other workers

VANNOY:

You

SHENKER:

Know, let hazard hazardous waste or an emergency

VANNOY:

Go ahead. Yeah, let, let, let’s do that cuz, and I’m looking at notes here, the, the buckets that I wanted to hit here. And I think we’ll come back to record keeping as one of the last ones. We’ll talk penalties and, and record keeping last, but it’s the emergency action plan and training and education. And I think these two things kinda are intertwined. So, so whichever one you want to pick first there.

SHENKER:

Yeah. So why, why don’t we speak about emergency action plans, okay? Because, you know, this is something that, you know, may be overlooked by, you know, a lot of businesses and, you know, e each, you know, business should have, we’ll call it an eap, an emergency action plan. So an EAPs are a written document required by OSHA standards. The purpose of it is to facilitate and organize employer and employee actions during a workplace emergency, right? It, it, it basically describes how employees should respond to different types of emergencies that take into account, you know, the employer’s specific, you know, work site layout, you know, structural features, emergency systems, you know, it’s very particular to your, your, you know, your operations and what that looks like. Generally, you know, in terms of putting an EAP together, you, you’re, you know, an employer is probably, you know, it’s probably recommended to not just include management, but include employees too in the planning process, because this is going to be applicable to employees. They, their, their viewpoint may be helpful as well here. So there are some, you know, minimum requirements for an for this eap, right? And what are we talking about? We’re talking about,

VANNOY:

Yeah. Is is, is the e a p, does it need to be a standalone document that is reviewed? Can it be just part of the employee handbook?

SHENKER:

Yeah, it, it can, it can be part of that, if it’s part of a handbook. I, I would even have it as a separate section just to, you know, separate set of pages, you know, cut out of there just because it, it is so important and affects safety. I mean, this is something that in the event of a fire, an explosion, yeah. You know, depending on, you know, you know, leaking of hazardous materials, you know, it’s gonna contemplate these things. And, you know, it’s something you don’t want hidden on page, you know, 75 of the handbook. So, you know, it, it’s, it’s good to kind of be, you know, a separate thing just so that you know, employees are aware of it and that it’s, you know, something that they do review. And look, it’s something that, you know, if you’re like the office where I’m in here, you know, there are, you know, fire drills every once in a while, and you don’t think about it, but the way you operate when there’s a fire drill is according to the eap, right?

You go and meet in a certain location, you know, perhaps employees are told, told to close doors, turn off machinery. So, you know, again, the minimum requirements, right? So the, you know, it’s gonna set the means of reporting, you know, fires or other emergencies. Yeah, that’s pretty simple these days. You know, we’re calling 9 1 1, you know, pulling a fire alarm, you know, easy enough where it really gets into it, right? The evacuation procedures and escape routes. So employees, you know, should understand, you know, who’s authorized to order an evacuation, right? A lot of businesses will have kind of a, you know, a, a a, a marshal or a fire marshal, you know, within the company that, you know, they’re the ones that are responsible for telling, all right? It’s time to evacuate. And that person, you know, should know what are the conditions? What are the circumstances in which we will evacuate and what route we’re going to take. Like I said, you know, there might be requirements to close doors, turn off equipment, you know, shut windows, you know, certainly, you know, if there’s a fire and you have machinery that you know, could be left on and potentially injure first responders, the EAP should establish that those machines should be turned off in the event of a fire, right?

VANNOY:

And yeah, so b there’s probably some people that we’re will be thinking, okay, you know, we, we, we work with hazardous chemicals. Here’s the, here’s the, here’s the clear e a p action plan, employee action plan. You know somebody falls off the ladder, they, the harness breaks, but I, I, we’re gonna talk about penalties in, in, in consequences of not following at the, I wanna wrap on that topic, but just something as simple like a fire. So like, we’re a, you’re a software company, you’re, you, this is white collar employees, and you’re like, why does this apply to me? Do I, do I really need an emergency action plan and e a p just in case there’s a fire? Obviously everybody just knows to run for the exits or whatever, right? What, what’s, we already know one bad thing happened, there’s a fire <laugh>, which is pretty bad, right? But what bad thing happens if I don’t have an EAP in place, if that tragic event happens,

SHENKER:

Right? No, great question. So, right, let’s say there’s a fire, and in the midst of that, you know, an employee gets left by and maybe someone’s in a remote location where they don’t hear the alarm system, or you know, look, you’re not able to timely find everyone, and, you know, may maybe people don’t know where to report to. You know, there, there are problems, right? So that’s why, you know, one of the things that that is required in EAP is, you know, a procedure for accounting for all employees in an evacuation, right? Because, you know, that’s, say there is that, you know, there is a fire, right? Well, we don’t, there might be an employee who is still stuck in the building, maybe their way of, you know, egress is blocked because of, you know, the, the fire. And if you don’t have a, a procedure for everyone to gather at a location and someone to identify who’s here and who is not here, you know, when the fire company comes, they’re gonna think, oh, we, we have a fire to put out.

This is not a rescue. Maybe it is a rescue situation because there’s an employee left behind. And now, you know, and this can apply to a simple office, right? Where, you know, you need to have that ability to tell them, Hey, we can’t find, you know, Jane Doe who, you know, we, she’s here, we don’t know where she is. You know, you know, or here’s the last location we know about, but you won’t be able to give that information to, you know, emergency personnel if everyone’s just scattered and you have no procedure for identifying you know, that everyone has been evacuated. Another thing that’s not required, but certainly in your IT scenario it’s something that, you know, EAPs can consider and include is you know, secure or offsite locations to, you know, it’s for, for records, so that that could be both paper or electronic, right?

But if, if a company stores all originals at, in one place, and there’s a fire, what happens if, if those are, you know, if those are burned, we have no backups, right? So some of these procedures are not just for the safety of the, you know, the employees, but for the business, right? If we haven’t considered, you know, if your, you know, emergency contact list is in the office and there’s a fire, well, how is someone accessing that? Once you’re all outside and you can’t get back in and someone needs to contact someone’s spouse that, you know, so and so is, you know, just been, you know, gone to the hospital, right? So a lot of these things are, if you don’t plan for it, it’s too late, you know, you know, because there are a lot of things that can go wrong. But having the EAP and establish procedures, really you can limit what those are and put in those controls.

VANNOY:

And that’s a pretty common,

SHENKER:

And again, you know, talking about penalties, right? You know, you, you don’t act, you don’t have this, someone gets injured, you know, that’s gonna be a, you know, a, a big factor,

VANNOY:

Right? I mean, it, common, common theme we talk about, it’s like there’s the compliance part of HR laws. For example, you know, o o OSHA requirements generally speaking in obviously this stuff, and especially in the modern world, kind of delves in the, to the, to the political realm where maybe you don’t always love every single law, even if you agree with every single law, it can be overwhelming to keep up with it all. But maybe just as employers, just to be thinking, what’s the spirit of the law, right? Whether it’s overtime, whether it’s minimum wage whether it’s leave requirements, whether it’s workplace safety even if it, no matter how frustrated you get, I would just coach people. What, what’s the intent of the law? The intent is to provide a safe work workplace. And by the way, if you do these things, it really is just kind of considered best practices.

So if osha, if, if OSHA didn’t exist, you would still want, you know, a good plan when the, if a, what happens if a tornado hits? What happens if there’s a fire? What happens if such and such scenario happens? These are just all really good practices anyway. Now, if you’re a big company and you got some operations folks, some safety folks, maybe this is what they do. No big deal. If you’re a small business and you’re trying to just scrap out a living, you’re trying to survive and, and grow your business on super lean margins and this is falls to you, you know, after you put the kids go to, to, to bed at night because you got your day job serving customers, this can be really, really hard. But maybe just the coaching is all this stuff really is best practices and running a business. Am I oversimplifying that, Brian?

SHENKER:

No, you’re, you’re absolutely right. I mean, just if we consider the statistics, right? I mean, you know I think in 2021, there were 2.6 million non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported by private employers. You know, there in 20, there were over 5,000 workplace fatalities in 2021. Wow. and so, you know, there’s a, there are a lot of injuries, luckily you know, fewer fatalities, but that’s a very, you know, substantial number. And, and so, right? I mean, even if you’re an employer not thinking about compliance with osha, again, you should, as we’ve, I, you know, said it applies to, you know, all employers if you, you know, just caring about the safety of your employees is, should be enough that you are going to take steps to, to reduce these types of hazards in the workplace, have these plans, and, you know, really put your, you know, workers in the best position to be safe.

And again, you know, for those who might not be considered about safety and are worried about the bottom line, you know, look, workers who get injured are missing work, which affects your bottom line too. So really, no matter how you look at this from the human aspect to the monetary aspect, to the legal compliance aspect, there’s, you know, lots and lots of reasons to take it seriously. And for employers who may have not considered that OSHA applies to them, you know, let this be an opportunity to, you know, take stock you know, under start reading things, you know, reach out to professionals, figure out how it applies to your workplace how, how you, you might have hazards you haven’t even considered. And what steps you, you should really take to protect your workers.

VANNOY:

So, Brian, we talked about the requirements to post. So all employers, white collar, blue collar, doesn’t matter. All employers must publicly post the, the safety requirements you can hop on. You know, we provide ’em to, for our clients our, our, our HR services compliance clients. But you can get ’em on the ocean website. You, you gotta post, but we also talk that you have to then live that out. So if the, if you have a hazard, the safety goggles must be required at all times, then you can’t let people walk around and not be held to account. So I’m Asureming these emergency action plans, the EAPs, it’s the same thing, right? So here’s, here’s the aap. You still have to enforce it. I think that’s a good segue then into training. What are, and I’m Asureming we’re gonna, there’s a gigantic, maybe complete overlap between best practice to run a business anyway, and then training on from an OSHA requirement. Let’s start with a requirement. What does, what does OSHA require by law the employers must train their employees on,

SHENKER:

Right? So training is going to be dependent on the company’s industry, and really, you know, the circumstances of, you know, what the workers are doing. You know, as I mentioned, the EAPs that requires training to employees. It’s not just a develop a, you know, a develop a plan and stored away for that, that rainy day. No, it’s something that employees should be trained on. Another, you know, widely applicable. One is you know, personal protective equipment. As I mentioned, ppe, employers need to train employees who are required to wear p p PPE on, you know, how to wear them. You know, how, how it should be worn, right? You know there might be, you know, for instance, a workplace that has, you know, dust and debris, right? We might have you know, a, a mask that’s required. Right? Now, if an employee is wearing that, you know, to cover their mouth and not their nose, it’s ineffective, right?

So there should be training on, you know, it’s almost like, you know, I, I, I kind of think of when we’re on a, an airplane and they’re telling us, you know, here’s a seatbelt. Here’s how to put it on. Here’s an oxygen mask. Here’s how to put it on. You know? Yes. Break it down to the very simple things, right? That, you know, again, nothing is too basic here. You know, this is your ppe, this is how we wear it, this is when you’re gonna wear it. You know, things like that. You know, hazardous waste operations you know, there’s a hazard communication standard, right? So this is, you know, educating employees about the hazards. So you know, a lot of workplaces have, you know, chemicals that pose, you know, a wide range of health hazards, you know, from, you know, skin irritation you know, to, you know, being carcinogens, the, you know, being even physical hazard.

It’s like, you know, flammability or corrosion or reactivity between chemicals. And so, you know, OSHA has this commun hazard communication standard that ensures that you know, all hazards of chemicals that are basically, you know, in the workplace are conveyed to the employees. So, you know, containers will be labeled, you know, there might even be pictograms and hazardous statements, you know, precautionary statements. You know, there’s a requirement to have a safety data sheet for these hazardous chemicals that among other things, it tells you, you know, what is this product? What, what hazards, you know, can, you know, are identified that it can cause what are the ingredients, you know, if there’s exposure, what are the first aid measures? What are the firefighting measures? What are the, you know, recommendations for handling and storage, right? So those are actual things that the company is putting on these, you know, containers or, you know, essentially, you know, for these hazards so that, you know, employees are aware of what they’re working with, and they know you know, how to deal with it. So, you know, OSHA requires an effective training program then to be conducted for all pe, you know, employees that could potentially be exposed to these chemicals. So, you know, they’re

VANNOY:

Things like that. And the story’s, the thing here is that story’s the same here as it was with posting, right? It’s like there’s a minimum requirement to train. Am I safe in saying that the law doesn’t get so specific that it prescribes exactly how the training occurs, but probably some minimum level of effectiveness or, or whatever. And so the coaching to employers is simply more is better. The more you can demonstrate that you’ve thought about this thoroughly. You provide lots of opportunities more than just opportunities. You’ve held some type of accountability where you, some type of auditability that people have gone through training. Is it as simple as thinking more is better, or are there some, some, and maybe I’m starting to tip into record keeping, what are there record keeping requirements of this training to make sure that I’m safe as from a compliance perspective as an employer?

SHENKER:

Right. So, yeah, I, I think on, on those points, so for some industries and some types of hazards OSHA has, you know, there, there are a variety of osha, you know, safety and health standards, you know, they can be found on the website. And, you know, some are for, you know, marine businesses, some are for construction, manufacturing has hazardous, you know, chemicals. So some of those do, you know, require, you know, certain, you know, training or certain communications. But, and, and to answer, you know, the second question, you know, sometimes it is more open-ended and it’s more dictated by your own workplace and what, you know, the training might need to be for that. And then yes, as the documentation, you know, this goes under a category of, you know, almost all things you know, you know, employment related, that it should absolutely be documented who attended the training when it was, you know, if there’s, you know, a slideshow or some outline for the training, you know, keep that, because remember, you know, one day OSHA can knock at your door unexpectedly, and you wanna be able to show that, you know, you’ve taken you know, steps to reduce risk.

 And so yeah, you would absolutely wanna show that that employees have undergone, you know, that training or, you know, other, you know, educational efforts.

VANNOY:

What other record keeping requirements does osha put put on employers, Brian?

SHENKER:

Sure. Great question. So the, when we think of record keeping, there, there are three OSHA that kind of form the core basis of OSHA required, you know, records. There’s the OSHA form 300, which is a log of work related injuries. There’s the Form 300 A, which is a summary sheet of those work-related injuries. And then there’s the Form 3 0 1, which is essentially the, you know, an incident, an injury incident report. If you’re interested in seeing what any of these forms look like, they’re all available on OSHA’s website. And, you know, each of these forms has some, you know, specific requirements. So you know, form 300 is kind of that, that log, the workplace log, where it’s not so detailed, but it contains information about recordable injuries or illnesses that have occurred that are work related.

So, just to break that down, you know, we’re not recording every injury or illness on this log. There’s a couple requirements in order for a company to be required to, to put it in. So, number one, we’re mostly talking about companies here with, with some exceptions, that have 10 or more employees. So again, this is very widely applicable you know, applies to offices as it does to, you know, manufacturing and construction. But it, you know, if an injury is workplace related and subject to this, if the work environment caused or contributed to the injury or significantly aggravated a pre-existing injury and so, you know, that’s gonna be determined on a case by case basis. You know, and, and it’s really a more likely than, than not standard, right? Is is it more likely than not that the work environment caused or contributed to, to this injury? And then

VANNOY:

Ultimately, who decides that? Is it is, is it, is it court of law

SHENKER:

Dispute?

VANNOY:

Go ahead.

SHENKER:

It, it’s generally gonna be an OSHA administrative law judge, right? If there’s a, you know, a, a complaint or, you know, an investigation by osha and they have some findings, typically the way it starts is that, you know, there will first be, you know, it’ll first go before an administrative law judge at osha, and then there are review, there is potential review of that. There’s one potential review that’s still within the OSHA agency or review can be sought in a federal court of the OSHA determination. So, right. It’ll be initially determined by OSHA if it’s you know, workplace related. But again, you know, when we’re, when an employer is deciding whether or not to put it on this form, you know, they’re deciding based on, you know, the guidance from osha. And so it then becomes an issue if, you know, it’s a recordable injury that, you know, has not been recorded.

VANNOY:

Right. Tell me if I’m

SHENKER:

Going down. It’s not just that it’s No, no, go

VANNOY:

Ahead. Tell, tell, tell me if I’m going down an unnecessary rabbit hole. But I would think that some, it’s probably not always black and white. Like if, if the employee is walking across the shop floor, they slip and fall and they turn an ankle or break a leg, okay? It’s, it’s obvious it, it was in the workplace, but something that is I don’t know, maybe, maybe it’s an allergy. An employee says, Hey, I think there’s mold in the air and I’m allergic to mold. You’re, you’re not providing a safe and work environment, but nobody else manifests this. Maybe as the employer, I think this person’s, you know, manufacturing a little bit of a scenario, or I’m, I’m sure there’s types of injuries that like a, like maybe like a stress fracture that happens slowly over time. And there’s not, it’s not crystal clear that this came, maybe this is cuz you played softball in a softball league, not from what your work environment how, how should employers be thinking about this? On what to record, what to not record?

SHENKER:

Yeah. So no, great point. And you’re right there, there is some, you know, factual analysis required. I mean, you know, some, some companies think that, well, if it’s a worker’s comp injury, then it’s recordable under osha. But it’s, it’s not, you know, OSHA has this different definition. And I’ll, I’ll just note that. So it needs to be workplace caused or, you know, contributed by the, the workplace. And it also needs to be a serious you know, a recordable injury, which means it results in death, missed work, restricted work, you know, transferred to another job or, you know, me, medical treatment beyond first aid or, you know, loss of consciousness or okay. Or other significant injury. But yeah, it, it, it is you know, it is something that if unsure, you know, a company should seek guidance you know, either from an HR professional or an attorney, because, you know, it’s not just this OSHA 300 log.

They are then gonna have to fill out, you know, this incident essentially, you know, the 3 0 1 form, which is an incident report and contains, you know, information about the treatment and what occurred with the, the employee and the circumstances in the workplace, you know, right before the injury occurred. So, you know, it, it does create, you know you know, compliance, you know, with, with, you know, multiple forms here. And so, you know, we don’t just wanna put down, you know, every single thing that occurs at the workplace, you’re, you’re probably being over-inclusive yeah, in that case, but at the same time, you know, we don’t wanna miss ones that, that should go on there.

VANNOY:

Brent, you said something really important, and I don’t want to go too far down this path, but just the difference between OSHA requirements and an OSHA reportable injury versus worker’s comp. Those are two separate things, but there’s overlap because it’s about safety and injuries. Can, can, what, what, how should employers be thinking about the differences about how these are separate things?

SHENKER:

Right. Well, you know, I, I would just tell employers that consider, you know, you know, let’s say the employee, you know, is on worker’s comp or make some worker’s comp claim, keep that separate, right? We’re gonna analyze the OSHA recordable injury and you know, what we need to do under OSHA entirely separate, right? We’re gonna look at was this injury caused, contributed to, or aggravated by, you know, a work related event. And then does it, you know, fit the, you know, type of injury that, that OSHA requires? So yeah, what I would say is keep the analysis, you know, completely separate that, you know, one doesn’t necessarily imply the other. And, and so, you know, I, I think that that’s important cuz you know, OSHA doesn’t, you know, OSHA’s not concerned with what, you know, your state worker’s comp board you know, defines as, you know, a, a worker’s comp injury.

 That doesn’t make it, you know, OSHA recordable. Got it. So I, I think one, one more thing to note on this topic is that, you know, it’s important, you know, from, again, all employers from offices to, you know, more hazardous work sites that you sh companies should have an established written procedure for employees to report these work related injuries. And OSHA finds that a reasonable, a reasonable procedure is one that isn’t too burdensome, right? There aren’t too many steps that generally, you know, it should be very quick and easy to report a workplace injury. And so, you know, that’s important to have something you know, in writing, right? That employers should know what the procedure is, that they should know they have the right to report workplace injuries, and that they know that, you know, they won’t be subject to retaliation or discrimination for reporting a workplace injuries. So that makes sense. You know, those are, you know, we always talk about policies. It’s important to have, you know, policies relating to, you know, reporting of injuries.

VANNOY:

So, Brad, for, for record keeping, I’ve got the form 300, I’ve got the 3 0 300 A, and I’ve got the 3 0 1. Those are require OSHA requirements where I log and track injuries. You’ve recommended, I don’t think it’s required by osha, but also recommended that we do record keeping around training, right? Training and enforcement. And so, hey, we rolled this out. Here’s the class we had, here’s the content summary of the content. And here’s who was invited, here’s who attended, heres who missed some type of note keeping. Do I have a right that, that’s not an OSHA requirement, but certainly it’s a recommended best practice,

SHENKER:

Right? I think for in general, it’s not a requirement. There might be some specific instances when it is, but Right. Generally not necessarily, but yeah, anytime you’re doing training, and this is OSHA or otherwise good idea to have it recorded because you’re, you’re doing the training for some purpose and, you know, if some related incident occurs, whether, you know, it’s, it’s OSHA related or anything else we can think of. Yeah. it’s good to establish that there has been that training.

VANNOY:

All right. So last topic that I wanna go through is penalties. Is there anything else on reporting documentation required by OSHA that we need to talk first?

SHENKER:

No, I, I think the, the o the only other thing I would mention is that these three forms we discussed, that those are forms that an employee can request to view at any time. Okay. And so, you know, the log, for instance, of all of all those recordable injuries, that’s something that I believe it needs to be produced to the employee within one, one day, right? The following day that they requested it needs to be made available to them. So, you know, these are things that you know, many, you know, this is kind of an anomaly, right? Most records employers keep are, you know, the company’s records like, you know, personnel files, and, you know, most states those aren’t required to be shown to employees. But for osha these logs and, you know, incident, you know, for instance, an incident report should only be shown to the employee who the incident is about. But the logs and summary of the logs, the 300 and 300 A, any employee can request to see those.

VANNOY:

Got it. So, okay.

SHENKER:

Obviously that makes it, you know, very important to keep them. An employee who learns they’re not kept might then report that to osha, then you’re, you’re dealing with, you know, a compliance issue,

VANNOY:

Right? Something that, so before, last thing, before we go to penalties and I should have covered in the top of the r I believe I know the answer to this, but I wanted to just make it crystal clear. So many HR laws are dependent on, sometimes it’s industry. Some, some industries have different overtime rates. Sometimes it’s based on size. So whether you have to comply with Cobra, whether you have to comply with the Affordable Care Act depends how many employees you have. OSHA doesn’t care. You have one employee, you must provide a safe work environment, right?

SHENKER:

Absolutely. So that’s where their, their catchall is the general duty clause, right? Where essentially, you know, an employer violates this general duty clause if, you know, the employer fails to you know, make its workplace free of hazards, and there’s a hazard in the workplace that is either recognized by the employer or in their industry and the hazards likely to cause or has caused, you know, death or serious physical harm. And that, you know, the hazard could have otherwise been, you know, material re materially reduced or eliminated by some, you know, feasible means of abatements. So that’s the catchall that applies to any employer. And then, right then for some other industries, there are additional, you know, compliance, there are additional standards for, right? We’ve talked about construction industry, right? There’s gonna be standards about scaffolding, right? And things like that. So even if you’re an employer that’s not subject to any of those specific industry standards, that general duty clause applies to you regardless of the number of employees you have. And you know, it, it’s something that requires an assessment of the workplace to see what those hazards are, understanding not only what you see, but what industry recognized standards are in your particular industry. And, you know, taking, you know, reasonable steps to you know, to eliminate or reduce those hazards.

VANNOY:

Last thing I wanna talk Brian is, is penalties and consequences. And we’re not, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna unnecessarily scare anybody but I also want to just be, get, get real. So how, this is one of those things that I think so many people, again, if you’re, if you work around hazardous materials, you’re in construction, you know, this is kind of a way of life for you. You probably already know the a a lot of this stuff and, and, and, and you live it out. But it’s who, who am I worry more for are maybe industries businesses that operate maybe a little more on the fringe and think, oh, I’m a little white collar. I’m, you know, yeah, of course if somebody fall, I gotta, I, I can’t have snags in my carpet where people fall, but this stuff doesn’t really apply to me. I’m just gonna, I, you know, I don’t need an emergency action plan. That just seems like overkill. I, I do want you to unpack for us, what, what are the consequences if you get it wrong, if, if, god forbid there is an actual injury, maybe there’s not an a, a a, a terrible injury, but you get reported and what fines might look like, help help us understand the context.

SHENKER:

Absolutely. So, yeah, so I’ll start with, you know, in 20, I believe in 2020 or 2021, the OSHA conducted over 24,000 inspections, right? And wow, you know, not all result in citations, but many of them do. And so if OSHA determines that an employee is exposed to a hazardous condition, right? And it doesn’t need to cause harm, it may be one that is likely to cause harm then it will issue a citation. And that’s gonna be something in writing. And citations are generally, you know, issued within six months of the occurrence of a violation. And they’re, they’re, they go in terms of seriousness. So the lowest level violation is a de minimus violation, right? And, you know, it’s, it’s really not even a citation, it’s just a notice of this violation. There was no direct or immediate relationship to safety or health, and there are no monetary penalties for that.

That’s the, that’s the one that’s not so scary. But then you have serious violations and other than serious violations, and each violation of those comes with a maximum penalty of $15,625. So that’s where there’s a substantial probability that death or physical, serious physical harm could result from whatever condition OSHA has identified. Or a practice or method or, you know, operations, whatever it might be. But then the real bad ones, right, are the willful and repeat violations. A willful violation or repeat violation carries a maximum penalty of $156,000 and 200 actually one fifty six, two hundred and fifty nine dollars. So that’s, that’s a whole lot. You know, willful violation is gonna be shown when the employer acts with intentional disregard to OSHA requirements. So that might be the situation we discussed where, you know, someone gets seriously injured during an evacuation and it turns out the company has no emergency action plan, right?

That might be something that’s willful because they’ve disregarded it was a free for all. Everyone was running out of the facility you know, and people got trampled. That’s, you know, that that would be, you know, a will willful violation potentially. You know, and also the repeat violations. If there’s a, a previous citation for a similar type of violation, and generally within the past five years, you’ll, you know, the company will get hit with that $156,000 penalty maximum penalty. Of course, it could be lower based on circumstances. But they can go after that, that maximum amount. There’s also, if there’s an imminent danger, if osha, you know, sees something in, you know, it is just, you know, like we said, like, you know, there’s electrical, you know, wires exposed and they are getting wet, and we see sparking, you know, something horrible like that where there is an immediate, you know, risk that someone is gonna get electrocuted or harm. They can just forego their normal procedures and go into federal court to get an injunction against the company unless the company, you know, voluntarily agrees to, you know, immediately, you know you know, abate that that condition.

SHENKER:

And then Brent, yeah, so there, there are serious penalties here,

VANNOY:

Brent. How does how do these things usually show up in, in as investigation? So clearly there are higher risk industries, right? Road construction roofing that you’re gonna have, you should, it’s reasonable to expect at and an undetermined frequency an OSHA inspector is gonna just show up on the job site, right? And so I, that’s probably why most folks are somewhat prepared for that. It, it also, I mean, this is not legal advice, but it’s also probably pretty reasonable cuz I mean, I’ve never seen it in my career where an OSHA inspector comes into a white color office and, you know, says, Hey, I’m doing an inspection. Therefore my, my fear is lulling white collar industries and businesses to sleep about the, what the actual risk is here. If it’s like an overtime or minimum wage, these things o often are, you know, it’s an employee, a disgruntled employee, former employee who makes a report. Maybe it’s a department of labor, maybe a, an attorney files suit on their behalf. How do these, how do these things usually manifest for, is it simply whether you do or don’t get inspected or are there other means?

SHENKER:

Right? No, excellent question. So there absolutely are, you know, targeted inspections on certain industries, but those are actually the minority of inspections OSHA does. So of those 24,000 plus OSHA in inspections in, in, in prior year that I discussed the majority, I believe 57% of those were not targeted, meaning they arose because of an employee complaint a referral from maybe work, you know, worker’s comp, right? You know, an employee reports an injury to worker’s comp. And it, it’s pretty clear that there might be a workplace condition cover, you know, that OSHA would be interested in or, you know, in an inspection it can occur when you have, you know, a serious injury or fatality. So yeah, there are, you know, many ways that, you know, an office while, right, your typical white collar office is not, not likely to be subjected to a targeted inspection.

The majority of inspections are not that way. So it’s gonna be a complaint and OSHA will just show up on site, right? Similar to, you know, A D O L auditor, you know, for wage and hour purposes. And, you know, they are, you know, allowed to come in there, you know, with no advanced notice. And you know, they’re going to, you know, there’s usually a process, there’s an opening conference when they’ll, you know, discuss, you know, what the scope of the inspection is, the need for interviews, a walkthrough review of records. Then, then they’ll do the site evaluation and walk around and then, you know, possibly interview employees review documents and, and other things that, that might be relevant. And then they’ll, they’ll close the investigation and, you know, make their, make their findings. So it’s very important to understand that for employers, right?

Because even if you’re a white collar, you know, office you know, do you know what to do when an OSHA inspector shows up? Right? You know, someone should from, you know, from management should be with that inspector the whole time, you know, when they’re walking around doing the evaluation. Yeah. And the inspector is taking photos. Someone from the company should be taking photos. You know, so there’s a, you know, you don’t just allow them to go in and, you know, get on with it. You wanna follow them around, ask, you know, the, the main tip I would give any employer, regardless of industry, when an OSHA inspector is on site doing an inspection, ask questions, you know, ask, you know about the scope, about what they’re looking for, about issues, absolutely ask questions. And also make the inspector follow the workplace safety standards, right?

If a hard hat’s required, make them wear a hard hat. If, you know, there’s employee screening, make them go through that screening. But you know, they, they’re generally allowed to go in and, you know and inspect as they see, you know, of course if they go outside the scope of the inspection, the company can try to rein them back in through, you know, discussing that with them. But yeah, you know, if they see other things, right? If they’re, if the inspector is there for one purpose, but they see, you know, some other hazards, they’re going to address those as well.

VANNOY:

Yeah. Maybe the last thing I would maybe add, just add for, for guidance, and I’ll, and I’ll let you close then, Brian whatever our topics we talk in this show is that we talk about a lot, a lot of HR compliance stuff. And, and, and the goal is to give the best information we can so you can stay compliant. So you can build great teams and grow your business. A lot of times people make mistakes. They don’t follow the law. It’s almost never on purpose. It’s not people, you know, I hate that law. That’s a stupid law. I’m choosing to not follow it. It’s, it’s, it’s unwittingly not following laws. Cuz the HR laws are so darn complex and they’re changing so fast, and there’s more and more of them ev every day. And the reality is, if you treat your employees really well and they know you love you, trust you, and think that you have their back and their best interest in mind you’re gonna get a lot of latitude from employees.

 And, and they, if they think they’re being wronged or they think they’re in an unsafe work environment, they’re probably gonna tell you about it and give you opportunity to remedy the situation. But they’re just, this just screams for this in, I keep thinking about all of the white er collar type jobs where Employeers might not realize how much risk they have. That’s, that was a really important stat that you shared around 57% are not the result of a a, a random inspection from a, an, an osha inspector. They’re, they’re coming out of other, the result of injuries or worse comp cases and whatnot, but also disgruntled employees. If a disgruntled employee wa goes into the break room and there’s a switch plate that is cracked, and you can maybe see some exposed wires. I mean, I’ve walked into businesses that you can get, you can just tell that thing has been there for years, right?

And it’s not okay. It’s gonna be an OSHA violation. But if all the employees love and trust and respect you, and you’re highly communicative and you, and you show them respect, they’re probably gonna at least tell you, Hey, could you fix that? That makes me feel really uncomfortable versus just arms crossed, I hate my boss. I’m gonna go report this sucker. And all of a sudden you got an inspector at your door for something that was a 57 cent switch plate at Home Depot. So to, to me, compliance is compliance. And hopefully this is a helpful hour-ish conversation for folks to take OSHA seriously understand what it is. At the end of the day, the best thing you can do to stay compliant is to have great relationships with your employees so that when things aren’t perfect, you can work on it together and get ’em fixed. Brian, is there any, anything else specific, maybe comment on that or specific on OSHA that you’d want to close with today?

SHENKER:

Yeah, and I’ll be brief, but Yeah, absolutely. So I, I think the key is, you know, like you said, if, if you’re going to have you know, a good relationship with employees, excuse me, then, you know, one of the things is keeping them safe. And, you know, addressing workplace hazards is very important. And it can, it can be as little as, you know, a clean place to eat or clean bathrooms, right? Those are covered. So if you’re a company that doesn’t think the supplies to you, you know, think again, it’s very much does and it pays to to take these compliance steps.

VANNOY:

Yeah. Brian who knew you could, we could talk so long about osha. I know there’s a lot there, but the thing I hope everybody walks away with is it doesn’t matter how big you are, what industry you are, where you are located, OSHA applies to everybody. In reiterate that stat. 57% of all osha investigations are not the result of some random audit where you got an OSHA inspector shows up at your door unannounced. It’s the result of an injury that happened in your workplace, whether it was a work comp claim or somebody reported you that comes in from a different direction. So we have to provide safe work environments for our employees. We need to do it in a compliant way, and in, in a way that shows respect to the employees to give us opportunity to remedy situations before they get ugly. And all of a sudden you’re getting issued fines for, for non-compliance. So Brian, I always love talking to you. Thanks for joining me today and thanks for everybody else for sticking with us. We’re in a little bit over on time, so I really appreciate it. Until next week’s show, we will see you later.