Priorities. As a business leader, you know that success is often related to how well you can prioritize. Determining the things that need to be done for success also means that things must be eliminated.

We are often asked the question, “What would we be facing if OSHA showed up for an inspection?”. The easy, but very impractical, answer is to point to the applicable Code of Federal Regulations as the benchmark. A more practical approach would be to determine what most likely would be cited.  If you are looking for OSHA priorities for an inspection, one benchmark is to look at the commonly-cited standards for your industry.

At the end of each fiscal year, OSHA updates the list of the citations and penalties issued for an industry. As long as you know your company’s North American Industrial Classification System code, you can find out the most common violations for your industry. Here’s the link to the information. https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/citedstandard.html

The list covers inspections in all of OSHA’s jurisdictions, but you can also see the list for a specific state OSHA program. The list can also be segmented by ranges of employment numbers.

As you head into a new year, we recommend that you use the list as a starting point for determining your level of OSHA compliance.

Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy 2014 from OSH Solutions LLC!