Improving safety should be a top priority for employers. The beginning of the new year is a prime time to reflect on the previous year’s safety record and make changes for improvement.
As the former Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, and a partner at Fisher & Phillips LLP, I have listed below 13 strategies every employer should implement to improve safety, reduce OSHA penalty exposure, and improve profits while protecting your company’s brand.
Thirteen Strategies Every Employer Should Implement
- Determine Your Vulnerability Under OSHA’s New Priorities
- Audit Your Company’s OSHA Recordkeeping, Especially Form 300 Injury & Illness Logs
- Audit Your Workplace for Routine Violations
- Review Abatement of All Past OSHA Citations
- Prepare for OSHA’s Revised Approach to Ergonomics Enforcement
- Use Job Safety Analysis (JSA) and Related Efforts to Focus Your Overall Workplace Safety and Health Strategy
- Turning Good Intentions Into a Workable Plan to Make Safety the #1 Goal from the Work Floor to the “C” Suite
- In Lean Times Utilize Safety as a Profit Center for Your Company
- Develop Your Company’s Emergency Action and Related Plans to Deal with the Inevitable
- Improve Your Company’s Wellness Plan and Protect it from Potential Liability
- Understand the Implications of OSHA’s Multi-Employer Citation Policy
- Avoid Membership in OSHA’s Severe Violators Enforcement Program (SVEP) and Similar Efforts
- Solve Other Problems by Solving Safety Problems
To read more about these approaches for improving safety click here.
About Edwin G. Foulke, Jr.
Edwin G. Foulke, Jr. is a partner in the Atlanta and Washington, D.C. offices of Fisher & Phillips LLP. He co-chairs the firm’s Workplace Safety and Catastrophe Management Practice Group. As former Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, Edwin Foulke headed OSHA and its staff of more than 2,200 safety and health professionals and staff. Foulke served on the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission from 1990 to 1995, chairing the Commission for nearly four years and rendering decisions in job safety and health disputes that arise from OSHA inspections. He served on the Workplace Health and Safety Committee for the Society for Human Resources Management, also chairing that committee, and has authored articles on workplace safety and health for various entities, including the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, American Bar Association, the South Carolina Bar Association, and the North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry.
