What is the REAL goal of the new OSHA Recordkeeping Rule?
Safety Consultant with Sheldon Primus
What is the REAL goal of the new OSHA Recordkeeping Rule?
July 26, 2023
In this episode, we delve into the upcoming changes to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordkeeping rule that took effect in 2023. OSHA is the agency responsible for ensuring safe and healthy working conditions for employees across the United States, and its recordkeeping requirements play a vital role in tracking workplace injuries and illnesses. Sheldon discusses the key aspects of the updated OSHA recordkeeping rule and its potential impact on both employers and employees. Here are the main points covered in the podcast: **1. Background on OSHA Recordkeeping:** The discussion starts with a brief overview of OSHA's recordkeeping requirements and why they are crucial for workplace safety. These regulations have been in place for several years, and their primary purpose is to monitor and analyze workplace incidents, enabling OSHA to identify trends, hazards, and areas that need improvement. **2. The Need for Rule Change:** The podcast explains the driving factors behind the 2023 rule change. Changes in the workforce, emerging workplace hazards, and advancements in data collection and analysis are some of the reasons cited by OSHA for revising the recordkeeping guidelines. **3. Key Changes in the Rule:** The episode outlines the significant modifications made to the OSHA recordkeeping rule. This may include adjustments to the criteria for recordable injuries and illnesses, changes in reporting timelines, updates to forms and documentation procedures, and the incorporation of new technologies for data submission. **4. Impact on Employers:** Sheldon revised rule affects employers' responsibilities and the potential challenges they may face in complying with the new requirements. This section might touch upon issues like training for HR personnel, implementation of data collection technologies, and maintaining accurate records. **5. Benefits for Employees:** The podcast emphasizes how the updated rule can enhance employee safety and well-being in the workplace. With improved recordkeeping, OSHA can identify hazardous trends faster, leading to better prevention strategies and safer working conditions. **6. Industry Reactions and Compliance Concerns:** The episode touches upon the initial industry response to the rule change and any concerns expressed by businesses about its practical implementation. Common challenges and solutions for complying with the updated regulations are discussed. **7. Ongoing Monitoring and Future Implications:** In the concluding segment, Sheldon emphasizes the importance of continuous monitoring and assessment of the rule's effectiveness. The episode also speculates on potential future changes to OSHA's recordkeeping requirements, given the dynamic nature of workplace safety. Listeners will come away from this episode with a clear understanding of the OSHA recordkeeping rule change that will take place in 2024, its significance for workplace safety, and the responsibilities it places on employers. The episode aims to provide valuable information for businesses and individuals seeking to stay informed and compliant with OSHA regulations.
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Keywords: OSHA recordkeeping, Rule change 2023, Workplace safety, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Employee injuries, Workplace illnesses, Data collection, Compliance, Recordable incidents, Workplace hazards, OSHA regulations, Data submission, Safety training, Employee well-being, Reporting timelines, Workplace trends, Safety improvements, HR responsibilities, Industry reactions, Workplace monitoring

[00:00:05] Announcer: This episode is powered by Safety FM 

[00:00:13] Sheldon Primus: Welcome to the Safety Consultant Podcast, I’m your host, Sheldon Primus. This is the podcast where I teach you the business of being a safety consultant; we talk about OSHA compliance, we talk about how you are going to market your business, keep everything going well. Not just US, we talk about this stuff around the world, right? And uh I had some great interviews, got some new ones set up. Can't wait to let you guys know what's going on in the interview world. Be ready. 

All right, let's see who's been listening. US, thank you, you're number one, followed by Thailand. All right. Thank you. Share it. Share the show with everyone else that's listening. Excellent. Thank you guys over in Thailand. That's literally where my daughter is right now. Koh Samui, that's where she lives. Oh, awesome. UK you’re in there, Canada, Germany, India, Australia, China, Pakistan, Chile, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Sweden, Senegal, Brazil, Ukraine, Spain, Bangladesh, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, New Zealand. You guys are all listening to the podcast. Thank you so much. Um If you have not heard your country yet, then uh it may just be you, meaning you're literally the only one listening to me. Uh we'll work on that, right? I'm gonna promote myself as much as I can, I’m gonna get some help from everybody over there that's gonna help me out. So thank you all for listening to the show. It's been pretty cool doing this. I've been uh it's my third year. We're in 200 something episodes, so not bad at all. Uh I really wanna just thank everybody. You guys just uh truly rock. You've been liking the show, you've been sharing it with other people and uh that's how everything kind of goes. That's how we do well. So please keep doing that and if you have a chance to rate me on whatever you're listening to me on, that's awesome. Thank you. You guys rock. 

All right, today, I'm going to talk a little bit. Oh, you know what? I forgot to do one more thing. Let's do one more thing before I go. I, I do have to let you guys know where I am on the charts. I forgot to do that. So in the US under Government, I am not on the chart anymore. Boo. South Korea. I am number 100 and uh this list is coming from Apple Podcast and uh they do top 200 in the category. So I'm in the Government category. Uh Saudi Arabia, I'm at 107. Chile, I am at 60. Senegal, I am also ranked at 30. So that is awesome. Thank you. On the chartable charts, let's see. It looks like I am 189 on global reach for chartable and in the US global reach, I'm 160. That's the charitable charts uh podcast. So thank you everybody for uh listening, liking and sharing. Um If you actually want to leave a message for the show, just go to safetyconsultantpodcast.com look for the microphone icon and you could hit that microphone icon, you got some seconds and you can talk to me and I'll reach right back out to you. 

All right. So let's get into this, not too long on this episode. What I really want to do is just give you the idea and, and let's connect the dots with OSHA's new record keeping rule. So I haven't done an OSHA update in a while, and uh OSHA, the Department of Labor announced that they are going to update, starting January, the new requirements for record keeping. So this is almost about 10 days old since the news announcement, I had to read over it, digest it and then kind of put everything together. So um in the US, uh there is a requirement for electronic record keeping for certain industries. Uh that is so OSHA could get triggered as to if the days away restricted transfer rates start going up. So if those rates go up in the, in that industry's code and for us, we call it a North American Industry Classification System code. NAICS. Oh man, I am just not a fan of all those like we've got all, I don't know, just acronym after acronym after acronym for what we do. Uh I just can't take this acronym. No. So, NAICS, that's what that one means. All right. So this is what the, the standard is going to do. It's actually gonna take away some of the requirements from um lower hazard industries for recording. And uh they're gonna try to target, they've been getting what's called a 308th summary and they by OSHA, 308 summary. So that's just uh numbers as to category numbers. How many days away did you guys have in the year? How many restrictions did you have in the year? Uh How many uh cases of uh death, how many cases of illness, how many cases of injury and you got to write all that down in a main form called your 300 form. And then there's a summary that doesn't have as much details, just the numbers and that gets posted for three months in the US from February 1st to the end of April. So on May 1st, everyone could take it down. Uh that log was submitted to OSHA electronically and that would give them information on just numbers alone. No real data. Well, and no real details to the data. So now they need details. So the new changes gonna establish, it's gonna work with uh establishments at 100 or more in certain high hazard industries. So it's just gonna focus in to those. Uh they're gonna need the 300s, the 301s and the 300A summary. So they're gonna get a complete picture of those industries and they're even adding, uh for the US each business, it will have a code to identify the business. Uh They want that number and it's called the employee identification number. So I'm telling you, they're getting really serious with this thing. Uh And the reason why is, uh you have to look at this holistically, it's gonna go right back to their budget, and I'll tell you guys um how to look at this holistically. And this is for you, if you're the safety consultant for your business or if you're trying to hire somebody, uh, you could use this as testing them to see if they know. And if you are the consultant now you could um talk to your people and just tell them, all right, this is what we're looking for and this is how we can stay compliant. So there's a couple other things. So you'll see this final rule uh a little bit later. Uh some companies that are going to be lower hazard, but uh they will have to submit the 300A form uh when they get over a certain size, 250 is the magic number. 

But anyway, I don't want to go through the whole compliance letter. Let's put this together and uh think of this as a way to dig in deeper. So OSHA now is going to require you to submit forms and then also new forms. And then also there's an existing requirement for if there is any significant injuries, it has to be reported to OSHA, severe injuries and they even have that acronym as SIR, so that is a severe injury reporting. Any of those SIRs, those severe injuries, that have to be reported, and uh the report itself now is gonna trigger some things. So now this is when I take you over to the budget. So in OSHA’s budget, there's clear, clear rules and you're looking for OSHA's budget 2023. Uh Once you find that you're gonna scoop down to uh looks like it's PDF page 33 but actual OSHA page 29. So uh they are, OSHA is going to have the serious injury inspections typically require double the time, this is me reading from the budget. Um, to complete with program inspections OSHA estimates about 75% of injuries reported in the SIR program. That's about 9800, uh 9800 reports will be addressed through a rapid response investigation, which is an employer led investigation, so you now are gonna get a letter from OSHA that says, hey, uh you told us about this thing, you need to do something about it and then let us know what you did about it. So that's what OSHA is just gonna do with that letter and then you have to tell them your schedule and everything else, how you're gonna fix this. So they're gonna rely on employer led investigation for 75% of these severe injury response. But the remaining 25 they're gonna go ahead and they're gonna start putting compliance activities to those. So now that was page 29. If you scroll down, you're gonna see on the next page in fiscal year, OSHA 2023, OSHA plans to continue uh their SST inspections and they're gonna keep those uh inspections for non-construction workplaces with 20 or more uh with elevated injury and illness rates. Meaning they're gonna be looking at these numbers that are coming in, when they start going up, that is going to trigger inspection. And so they are absolutely going to be using these numbers that they're coming in, not willy nilly, but this is gonna be where the targeted inspections are gonna come. And here's another one, OSHA will continue uh with the inspections to focus on agency efforts in non-construction workplaces with 20 or more based on the injury and illness information from the 300A summary that employees submit on OSHA's uh injury tracking application. So that's me literally reading from there, so you guys are now seeing the bigger picture. So OSHA is gonna get this data, this data is now going to be put into the system, the system now is gonna record um you know, pretty much uh what they need and uh it's just gonna look for trends, right? That's really what it's looking for. So after it gets to trends then from there, they're going to come out and do their inspections. So that is gonna be the way it's gonna work. So uh it's not just OSHA is looking to get data in. This data is gonna be changed or excuse me, it's gonna trigger some things, some inspections and it also doubles with a few other things that are happening behind the scenes with OSHA. But the workload, this workload is gonna be divided. Uh OSHA, here's me reading again, uh OSHA is shifting its focus to highest priority, highest impact, excuse me and complex inspections at high risk workplace which often employ minority and foreign workers and they're going to have an increase of 2300 inspections in the fiscal year. Uh So that is their goal and they are now going to say the agency expects that newly hired co-shows will cover many of the self injury or excuse me, severe injury reporting in fiscal year 2013. This will allow senior co-shows to focus on program inspections. So that means when you report these to OSHA, 75% of these serious injuries or severe injuries are gonna be done by, uh, the in house process where OSHA is gonna have you figure it out, but the 25% that's not, is gonna get new inspectors and the new inspectors are gonna go through your facility and they're gonna be learning on the job, uh, with you. Uh, so at that point, they're not technicians, they're co-shows so they got some experience, a little bit. You're gonna have to work with them with the most. So, um that is the big picture. 

[00:13:43] Sheldon Primus: So now you take this information and you are going to level up your consulting. Get there we go, leveled up, you leveled up your consulting. So as you leveled up your consulting, what you're gonna end up doing now is uh for you in the US, you could use this as a way to get in the door. Review people's 300 logs, review the 300A, the 301 form and you give a comprehensive review of their establishments because all this is establishment based. Uh the way you get your foot into the door is talk to uh HR, the finance person. I've done that through linkedin, I've done that through friendships. Uh I've done that through any kind of networking group. So once you get your foot into or let them know that hey, OSHA's made this rule and that's your way. OSHA made this rule, it's going in January of this year, are you compliant? And you're gonna start a service using the OSHA uh, there is a record keeping, um, compliance letter. You find that compliance letter, you just follow the compliance letter. Honestly, that's the way to do it. Just don't make it too hard on yourself. Follow the compliance letter. Right. Stop it. You can't make everything hard on yourself. Do the compliance letter, nice and easy. So, don't get yourself crazed. It could get crazy going through all the compliance letters. I've been waiting to use that one. 

All right. So I just really wanted you guys to kind of think this one through there's not a whole bunch uh that you really need to, to do yet. This is prep time, right? So you guys are prepping for what's happening in January, get your clients ready, get yourselves ready. You need to download the OSHA compliance letter for record keeping. Uh Once you do that, then you'll be able to uh set everything up. Uh As a note, here's me changing, as a note. I'm actually uh almost done with sheldonprimus.com. Uh As you remember, I broke my site earlier this year and I was rebuilding it and uh rebuilding it and showing people on safetyconsultant.TV, how to fix it. And then also I give uh free resources as well. So some of you may not know how to reach out to me and you're like, man, I'd love to get to, I spend a lot of time with the members of safety consultant dot TV. That's my product. That's my baby. I've created it. So if you're gonna be a safety consultant, go to safetyconsultant.tv, or if you play that role or you need to get information from a safety consultant and you don't know how to, you know, work stuff out. They got a lot of stuff in there. So go to safety consultant dot tv You're gonna sign up and use code SC101, you'll have 30 days for free SC101. Safety Consultant 101, so SC101. So once you do that, you'll be able to not only uh see some of the videos that I have for you guys regarding uh safety and health and getting your business started and step by step on that. Uh But then you also will have downloads. You could download a lot of the material I talk about regarding safety and health programs. So download that directly to your site there to your site, excuse me, to your, your um computer and then from there you could use it for your clients. That's why I put it in there. So you don't have to do all the work. All right. And I think of it holistically as well. So you're gonna go to Safetyconsultant.tv, you're gonna use code SC101 and sign up today. You can be part of the membership. I reach out to my members all the time. I've talked to several of them uh personally to find out what's going on because you know, sure you wanna be able to have the video access, but then you have access to me as well. So safety consultant dot TV, use this code SC101. And literally I send emails out to the members and say what's going on now, how can I help you? And we said we talk. So, Scott, I got you there. Marylee, I got you as well. So anyway, oh, you got guys out there, gals out there. Thank you so much for listening to the show, go get him. 

[00:18:39] Announcer: This episode has been powered by safety FM.
The views and opinions expressed on this podcast or broadcast are those of the host and its guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the company. Examples of analysis discussed within the past hour are only examples. They should not be utilized in the real world as the only solution available as they are based on very limited and dated open-source information. Assumptions made within this analysis are not reflective of the position of the company. No part of this podcast or broadcast may be reproduced, stored within a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, mechanical, electronic recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the creator of the podcast or broadcast Sheldon Primus.




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