Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Inspection Priorities

Topic: HR Management
Words: 553 Pages: 2
Table of Contents

Introduction

Employers’ safety and security remain essential parts of the working process. In order to achieve these goals and ensure appropriate working conditions, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created. Presently, remote work is becoming increasingly popular, leading to issues with home-based worksites and requiring careful construction inspection. The Occupational Safety Health Administration’s position on home-based worksites is not to interfere if no complaints are available and the process for scheduling construction inspections is based on randomly chosen a list of construction worksites.

Discussion

Complaints or referrals from parties such as employees, people not currently employed by the specific company, the media, or any local or government entity that notices OSHA inspections give a workplace hazard major priorities. According to complaints or referrals (Goto et al., 2019), the OSH Act’s standards may have allegedly been broken, or there may have been unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. Complaints and referrals are assessed based on the validity of the source and the seriousness of the violation. (Silva Ferreira et al., 2019). Planned inspections are given the fourth priority. Inspections that are planned focus on high-risk occupations and industries. Therefore, the high-risk industries are determined based on assessments of variables like the potential to result in worker fatalities, injuries, or illnesses and the workers’ exposure to toxins.

All employees and employers working within the United States, including home-based offices, are subject to the OSHA Act and might be inspected when severe violations occur. Employers with home-based workplaces should adhere to the Act and take reasonable steps to identify home office hazards to provide their employees with a safe and healthy working environment (Silva Ferreira et al., 2019). OSHA inspections are focused on commercial and industrial workplaces and not home-based offices.

As a result, home-based workplaces and websites or settings are not routinely inspected. In addition, the OSHA’s position on home-based working websites is based on non-intervention until severe violations or complaints occur (Silva Ferreira et al., 2019). However, the compliant officers are permitted to conduct inspections at home-based businesses like those in the clothing industry. Home-based office dangers like fatalities in remote workplaces are also examined. Hence, OSHA does not inspect home-based websites without severe safety and security violations.

The OSHA Act establishes requirements for employers to have accident prevention programs that guarantee competent individuals are designated by employers to conduct routine inspections of the worksite, equipment, and materials. Construction inspections are scheduled based on the construction worksite and not the construction company due to factors like the construction industry’s versatility, construction sites involving more than one construction company, and the transient nature of construction sites (Goto et al., 2019). From a list of construction sites presented in the given area, the compliance officers create a schedule of ongoing projects to be inspected in the following month. Thus, the process of scheduling construction inspections has its procedure, consists of randomly chosen projects, which are to be inspected, and has time-frames.

Conclusion

All in all, the OSHA is aimed to ensure healthy, safe, and secure working conditions for employees. This organization performs many regulations and inspections. The OSHA only interferes with home-based websites once there are no disruptions and complaints. In addition, the company has its process of scheduling construction inspections, which includes randomly chosen projects to be inspected within a certain period of time.

References

Goto, C. B., OSHA, R. X., Rector, J. A., Lamont, A., Director, A., & Region, X. (2019). AKOSH program directive #19-08. US Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Web.

Silva Ferreira, A. P. S., Pereira, E. C., Salles, F. J., da Silva, F. F., Batista, B. L., Handakas, E., & Olympio, K. P. K. (2019). Home-based and everyday work exposes families to high levels of potentially toxic elements. Chemosphere, 218, 319-327. Web.