2024 has been a busy year for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), with a plethora of updates during the year.
In this blog we have gathered together the most important changes that employers need to know about.
Read on to learn more about:
- The 4 key OSHA updates for 2024
- How an EHS solution can help
- How EcoOnline can help your organization
The 4 key OSHA updates of 2024
1) Updates to the Hazard Communications Standard
As of July 2024 OSHA has made some key changes to the HCS Final Rule, most of which fall under the following headings:
Maintaining alignment with the GHS and U.S. trading partners: This brings HCS into alignment with Rev. 7 of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS).
- This includes the “mandatory use of prescribed concentration ranges when exact percentages or percentage ranges of materials are claimed as a trade secret”.
- Another change is the introduction of special labelling provisions for 3 ml and 100 ml containers.
- Revisions were also made to SDS Sections 2,3,9 and 11
Addressing issues identified since the 2012 HCS update:
- Clarification to hazard information needed on the label vs. the SDS
Improving coordination with other US agencies such as DOT and EPA.
There is a phased set of deadlines for compliance with the final rule starting from its publication in July 2019. You can find these dates here.
Want to learn more about safety data sheets? Check out our comprehensive guide.
2) Increases in OSHA penalties
OSHA adjusted its civil penalty amounts, increasing them by 3.2% for citations issued after January 15th, 2024. This is intended to keep penalties in line with inflation and to ‘maintain their deterrent effect’.
- Maximum penalties for serious and other-than-serious violations (per violation): $16,131
- Maximum penalty for willful or repeated violations (per violation): $161,323
3) Updated injury data requirements
In mid-2023, The U.S Department of Labor announced that certain employers in designated high-hazard industries would have to electronically submit injury and illness data to OSHA. This came into effect on January 1st, 2024. Effected industries include logging, plastics product manufacturing and food manufacturing, the full list can be found here.
Now, effected organizations must electronically submit information from the following forms to OSHA once a year:
- Form 300- Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses
- Form 301-Injury and Illness Incident Report
The update also retains the current electronic submission requirements for Form 300A.
4) Restructuring of OSHA regional operations
In October, OSHA announced the creation of a new region as part of its restructuring. The new regional office in Birmingham AL covers OSHA operations in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Florida Panhandle.
OSHA regions will no longer be listed numerically (Regions 1 – 10), but will have geographic designations instead (e.g. Boston Region, Birmingham Region etc.).
How a Health and Safety Solution Can Help
Now that you know about OSHAs key 2024 updates, how can you make sure you comply with them?
A digital health and safety solution can help you better protect workers and make submitting data to OSHA simple. The following are just some of the benefits software can offer your organization:
1) More effective hazard identification and assessment
One of the best ways to stay ahead of incidents and nonconformances is through efficient hazard identification and assessment. A digital solution can help streamline your hazard identification and assessment process at the workplace, as it can all be done digitally! With a robust mobile app, you can place safety in the hands of your workers.
They can instantly report hazards, upload and annotate photos and send their reports directly to stakeholders.
This will help to boost employee engagement and participation and improve safety performance. A digital solution can help hold everyone accountable for creating a safer workplace and help you begin to implement a more proactive approach to safety.
2) Streamlined risk mitigation
A digital solution can also help drive safety performance through quicker risk mitigation. With the help of automated capabilities as well as corrective action notification set-up, key stakeholders can be notified immediately, and corrective actions can be assigned.
This provides transparency as employees see the status of corrective actions as they progress and are resolved.
Software lets you standardize risk management procedures across the organization. That way, if your organization has multiple sites or teams, a digital solution can help create and house a single procedure that all can follow. Proof that corrective actions were taken can also be documented and shown to auditors during an inspection to avoid potential fines.
3) A central repository of safety documentation and records
With health and safety software you can digitize and centralize your safety program. Not only are you able to store all your documents, safety data, and records in one cloud-based location, but it also makes it easy for key stakeholders to access information when needed.
Forget spending hours sifting through boxes or looking through files of paper documents to find what you’re looking for. With a digital solution, easily pull up any required proof, data, or documentation needed during an audit in seconds. It also makes meeting new OSHA injury data requirements much easier.
4) Greater insight into gaps and weaknesses
Now, with everything in one location, you can easily uncover gaps within your health and safety program. A cloud-based solution offers 360-degree visibility into your safety program and performance, making it easier to identify any gaps or weaknesses.
With the help of a digital solution, you can also create custom dashboards specific to the data you would like to track to help you gain real-time insight into the effectiveness of your safety program. Once all problem areas are known, you can prioritize what to tackle first and how to manage risks that could lead to OSHA fines.
5. More efficient behavior-based safety observations
A health and safety solution also allows you to conduct more efficient behavior-based safety observations (BBSOs) through a mobile-first application. Allow employees to easily record their findings within the health and safety solution and begin to track potential risks and root causes across your organization. This will help to mitigate risks and hazards, reducing your chance of receiving a citation.
These types of observations are vital to assessing workplace behavior, as they can help you get to the root cause of nonconformances on site. There is a misconception that BBSOs point out what employees are doing wrong, but it should actually be an opportunity to discover what employees are doing right. This will help empower your teams and create a stronger safety culture.
Take a look at our Guide to Behavior-based Safety Observations.
6. Training and awareness
Easily assign courses and track training through a digital solution. To stay ahead of citations related to lockout/tagout, for instance, you must be able to properly train your teams on how to conduct such procedures and mitigate hazards. Create employee profiles where you can easily see which certifications they have completed and which are not yet finished, with automated reminders to stay ahead of upcoming expiry dates.
A digital solution will also help you gain greater insight through training reports by employee, job site, and/or department. Drive safety performance by correlating training and incident reports to stay ahead of potential citations.
How EcoOnline Can Help Your Organization
EcoOnline’s health and safety and chemical management solutions can help you avoid fines related to instance-by-instance violations through our various capabilities:
- Greater Transparency: Gain 360-degree visibility into your safety program to easily identify all problem areas.
- Analytics and reporting: Use our robust reporting engine to collect the right data for your organization to assess safety performance and make data-driven decisions.
- Inspections: Instantly conduct or create scheduled inspections with our mobile app to make sure the right engineering controls are in place such as machine guards, barriers, and more.
- Automated corrective actions: Work quickly to mitigate hazards through our automated corrective action set up capabilities.
- Training: Access 300+ eLearning courses to help train your teams on hazards related to working at heights, respiratory protection, and much more to keep your teams safe. Create training profiles for each employee and easily set reminders before upcoming expiry dates to avoid fines.
- Permit to work: Streamline operational processes in real time while working on site.
- Lone Worker Safety: Track the whereabouts of lone workers and let them raise alarm in emergencies with our mobile solution.
- Recordkeeping: Save time on administrative work by digitally completing your OSHA 300 and 301 forms.
- SDS Management: Store and keep track of all your SDS in one system.
Curious to explore how our health and safety solutions can help you avoid hefty OSHA violations? Fill out the form below, or speak to an EcoOnline representative today.
