What Every Employer Needs to Know About OSHA’s New Requirements for 2015

By hrs-admin / November 4, 2014 / Uncategorized No Comments

By Luke Woerner, COSS, HR Solutions Safety Director

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently announced new requirements for reporting severe work-related injuries and changed the list of industries that are exempt from certain record-keeping requirements. This rule change will go into effect Jan. 1, 2015, for workplaces that are under federal OSHA jurisdiction.

The main change this rule makes is to which injuries must be reported to OSHA. Previously, employers were required to report within eight hours of an incident any work-related fatalities or any time three or more employees were hospitalized for a work-related incident at the same time.

With the new ruling employers must now notify OSHA of amputation or loss of an eye within 24 hours. In addition, the three-employee notification requirement has now been reduced to one.

“This means that many more reports will have to be submitted to OSHA as it is fairly irregular to find one incident that results in three or more injuries or illnesses requiring in-patient hospitalization, while thousands of injuries or illnesses result in at least one in-patient hospitalization, amputation or eye loss,” says Ashley Shaw, legal editor at XpertHR. These reports often lead to incident inspections — and can result in citations.

“Because the injuries and illnesses that must be reported will be more common and more likely to affect all employers (such as an in-patient hospitalization of an employee who had a heart attack, which could have taken place in any type of workplace environment), it is important for HR directors to know the reporting requirements, how to report, and what is likely to happen after a report.” Shaw says.

Establish a Procedure

It’s important for employers to have a procedure or protocol in place to follow in case any fatalities, amputations, hospitalizations and other events that need to be reported to OSHA. This protocol or procedure should recognize who in the organization is responsible for reporting events to OSHA. This individual should be familiar with the process of reporting injuries directly to OSHA.

Even if employers are exempt from maintaining injury and illness records (OSHA 300 logs), they are still required to report the new events. To assist employers in fulfilling these requirements, OSHA is developing a Web portal where employers can report incidents electronically, in addition to the current phone reporting options.

Mason Cole, founder of Cole Sadkin LLC, says that the rule change is a reflection of how it can be difficult to get companies to self-report incidents. “This is just a reflection of litigation — this is a way of having more reporting and more workers compensation cases instead of litigation. It’s really protection for both sides.”

State Rules May Be Stronger

Cole says it’s important for companies to be aware of the requirements their businesses might face in different states, and that state reporting requirements may go beyond the federal standard. “A lot of companies might say, ‘we’re in compliance with federal law, and that’s enough,’ but if your state requires more, you need to be in compliance with whichever requires more. Basically, the theory of the law is it’s going to improve access by employers, employees, researchers and the public about workplace safety and provide more transparency, with the ultimate goal of alleviating workplace injuries.”

If you’d like more information about the new OSHA rule and ensuring compliance at your organization, contact us. We’re here to help.

HR Solutions is a human resources outsourcing firm based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We eliminate human resources headaches for businesses with 10 to 1,000 employees by handling their payroll, employee benefits, regulatory compliance and other staffing needs. Contact us to learn how we can streamline your company’s human resources function to save money and reduce risk.

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