Don't get Zapped by OSHA for Electrical Violations

OSHA inspections are on the rise at manufacturing companies, and most audits result in citations for electrical violations.

Managers at manufacturing companies typically are not aware when their facility has numerous on-going electrical compliance violations. This leaves your company open to expensive OSHA citations. We often contract out equipment installation work (with electrical contractors) and assume they will make installations meet code – a bad assumption. We have a paper available for download on this subject below:

Electrical Safety - Dont Get Zapped from ImpactSafety 2019.07.30

Four Reasons Why Companies Engage with Safety Consultants

Company leaders often engage with outside safety firms to help support the safety program at their company. There are four key reasons to consider using a safety consultant:

1. Effectiveness
   An experienced safety consultant can help a company focus and tailor safety efforts to address local safety risks and specific OSHA compliance issues the company may have. They know regulations and best practices in the safety field. They know what actions work best to prevent accidents and OSHA citations. The professional helps ensure the company safety program moves forward – partly because they are objective, and are able to stay focused on completing objectives (They are not bogged in daily distractions or politics inside the company like employees often are). Some companies lack the infrastructure bandwidth to implement an effective safety program in a timely manner without outside help.
2. Cost Savings
   An outside safety professional can provide vital services very efficiently. Companies find that a good safety consultant can deliver specific services at a lower cost compared to the company paying to prepare employees to provide these services in-house.
3. Professional Quality
   A safety consultant can deliver services in a professional manner that your company will be proud of – services employees appreciate. Safety consultants are always improving the quality of their offerings –It’s not likely that a company employee will be able to go through dozens or hundreds of cycles of improvements on various safety services (but an experienced consultant has the opportunity to make these on-going improvements in services).
4. Wide Range of Capabilities
   The services your safety consultant offers may include the following:
   Identifying needed improvements through safety audits, providing streamlined safety training tailored for your employees, packaging a custom safety manual, documenting equipment-specific lockout / tagout procedures, helping plan in-house GHS labeling, providing a forklift certification program, conducting ergonomic assessments of tasks and workstation setups, conducting CPR/First Aid certification sessions, preparing safety plans & procedures for specialty situations (such as fall protection for working at heights or confined space entries).  Your safety consultant can also be a mentor for company personnel such as your safety manager /coordinator, and others that have safety responsibilities.

Companies are required to have a safe work environment for all of their employees. Company leadership needs to arrange for appropriate resources to ensure the environment is safe and OSHA compliant. However, a company should not try to totally outsource their safety program to an outside consultant or firm.  To have sustained success, there must be a sense of ownership and participation in safety at all levels of the organization. While a safety consultant provides many key on-site services (including advising management on safety direction), the consultant will not be on the shop floor with your workers every day.  Company employees are the ones who will be re-enforcing the safety culture on a daily basis.

Many of the key components of a safety program are “people” programs.  Therefore it’s important that companies select a safety consultant that meshes well with the company style and culture.  It’s also important that a consultant is selected who is willing to be innovative with their approaches to better meet the specific needs of your situation.

Company leadership needs to arrange for appropriate resources to ensure the work environment is safe and OSHA compliant. For many companies, it is wise to hire an outside safety consultant to provide some key parts of the safety program. Even when using a safety consultant, leadership will always need to assign in-house personnel appropriate safety responsibilities as well.

If your company has a site in Texas and you are considering the option of utilizing outside safety support, be sure to contact Joe Eudy at Impact Safety.