Cliff Ennico, legal editor of sbtv.com and author of the best selling book “Small Business Survival Guide.”
So, you’ve started a business, you have a few employees, maybe it’s an office environment, or maybe it’s an assembly line, or a small manufacturer somewhere in the United States. What are your responsibilities regarding workplace safety and how do you learn what the right thing is to do in terms of protecting your employees against workplace accidents.
If there’s one area, where I think a lot of employers spend a lot of time worrying is this area—where the great things that employers, especially in the manufacturing world dread, is the dreaded OSHA inspection. My advice to people is, make sure you set yourself up for a safe workplace at the gecko and you will have very little to worry about in terms of an OSHA inspection or audit.
First of all you’re going to have to learn what OSHA requirements are all about. First you should go to the OSHA website which is www.osha.dol.gov or you can just go to dol.gov, that’s Department of Labor and just type OSHA, for Occupational Safety and Health Administration into their search engine, you’ll get right there. You’ll be asked a few questions about your specific type of business and you should be able to pick up some basic information about the guidelines that apply to your specific industry.
But, don’t forget too, the states have their own OSHA requirements. My best advice is to get in touch with your local state OSHA office and make a friend there. These people are usually pretty friendly. This is not a government agency that needs to be feared. In my experience and in my clients’ experiences, these people are only too willing to help you avoid accidents. That’s their whole mission in life, it’s to keep workplace accidents from happening. If you make a friend there, they’ll be more forthcoming with information about what people in your specific industry and your specific locality do to keep workplace accidents at a minimum.
But, don’t stop there. Number one, make sure that you have all your workers comp insurance. That’s the big thing. Every state has a worker’s comp law that requires that every one of your employees be covered up to certain minimum—up above certain minimum amounts for specific types of injuries and accidents. Make sure you have the appropriate coverage for each one of your employees. If you ever are subject to an OSHA audit, that’s one of the first things they are going to look at.
Secondly, use common sense. If you have an office environment, do not allow boxes to pile up in alleyways between the cubicles where people can trip over them. Make sure you’re not using any hazardous equipment. Make sure that all of your people are trained to use the equipment that they are operating. Don’t trust people who are novices unless being supervised by an employee who has a lot of OSHA’s stuff. I find it’s common sense when you get right down to it and the people who really get nailed by the Department of Labor on these things are the people who really made no effort to comply and are running a warehouse where things are allowed to stack up and lean over the aisles and where people don’t know how to drive forklifts.
A little training and a little guidance will go a long way. There are labor attorneys who specialize in OSHA. If you go to a website called elinfonet.com. This is an employment law network of employment and labor lawyers around the country. If you type in your zip code in OSHA, you should be able to find a labor attorney in your area who can come over, examine your workplace, and have and predict where the sensitivities to OSHA liability might be. I’m Cliff Ennico for sbtv.com.
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