The Importance of Training Workers in Safety

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It should come as no surprise that safety training for workers in your factory is an extremely important topic for OSHA compliance. OSHA provide safety training specifications to ensure that your workplace and your workers are in compliance with these safety standards.

However, up to 90% of small to medium-sized factory and warehouse companies don’t properly manage their OSHA training requirements, which puts them at serious risk of serious injuries and incurring major OSHA fines. It’s important to base your training materials on regulatory standards and recommendations. OSHA provides a guide to help you build your training program. How should you implement these recommendations?

Check Your Program Against Regulatory Guidelines and Develop an Implementation Plan

First and foremost, you will have to find holes in your training program. Check your training plan against OSHA requirements. OSHA, for example, recommends your training program includes, at minimum:

Assess your operations to determine which OSHA standards need to be trained. Common topics include Hazard Communication, Fall Protection, Emergency Response, Lockout/Tagout (LOTO), and more.
OSHA training standards must be customized to address your company specific health and safety hazards.
Health and safety policies, goals, and procedures
The functions of the health and safety program
Information for points of contact for questions or concerns about the program
Employer’s responsibilities under the health and safety program
Worker’s rights under the Occupational Safety and Health Act

Some states don’t fall under Federal OSHA, and instead have state programs which must meet or exceed federal OSHA standards. If you’re in one of these states, make sure to check your safety training program against state requirements.

Design a New Training Program if Necessary

A few things to remember when re-designing your training program:

Make sure all training is specific to each employee’s role. For every section of your warehouse or factory, make sure that everyone knows how to report emergencies and to whom.
Again, training must be customized to address your company specific health and safety hazards.
Show employees how to recognize hazards and how to control them. They will also need to know how incident investigations are conducted.
Ask for feedback to improve the health and safety program as it rolls out and provide a way for employees to ask questions.

Training Solutions

Even with training program recommendations, it can be difficult to ensure that your program checks all the boxes. Berg Compliance Solutions can consult with you to create a fully customized Environmental Health and Safety turnkey training program designed to meet all regulatory requirements. Our training solutions also protect your business from civil and criminal problems if things go wrong, as well.

On a final note, it’s vital that companies maintain their training programs during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Social distancing creates training challenges since employees shouldn’t be gathered in large groups. During this time, consider using “distance learning” tools such as on-line training resources, but make sure that those resources are customized to your company specific needs as described above.

If you’re wondering how to create a compliant, effective training program for your floor workers, contact Berg Compliance Solutions today.

By Russell Carr|2022-03-21T13:03:55-05:00April 28th, 2020|Good To Know|Comments Off

About the Author: Russell Carr

How A Sales Guy Transformed Into An Environmental, Health & Safety Expert & Advocate For Small Businesses I've spent my entire 30+ year career working within the manufacturing and “industrial services” sectors. The first 15 years of my career focused on sales of hazardous materials related products and services to the manufacturing sector, then for the last 16+ years transitioned into entrepreneurship, founding 3 small industrial services related contracting businesses. As you’ll see below, running these companies eventually lead me to found yet a 4th business, but more on that in a minute…. Here’s a brief description of the first 3 companies: Berg Environmental Services, Inc.: hazardous waste disposal & transportation services, founded in August of 2003 3rd party wind energy operations & maintenance services provider to utility scale wind farms throughout the US, founded in September 2007 3rd party oil & gas exploration & production services provider, founded in August of 2011 Each of these companies operated in extremely dangerous working conditions and exposed my employees to a wide range of serious health & safety hazards on a daily basis. To complicate matters, 2 of the companies also exposed the environment to significant potential harm. In other words, I learned very early the critical importance of managing environmental, health and safety issues so as to ensure the safety of our employees and the environment, as well as minimizing related risks. But I also learned how incredibly difficult and challenging this endeavor can be due to the wide range of complicated and continually changing environmental, health and safety rules and regulations that impacted the companies. To summarize the challenges: First I had to determine which regulations applied to each company, then I had to build compliance programs to meet those regulations, and finally I had to ensure that the programs were being managed and followed by our staff on a daily basis. All while trying to run and grow 3 profitable businesses…. It was overwhelming and I always struggled to keep up. To make matters worse, throughout this time I also witnessed the devastating price that companies, management and ownership can pay for failing to manage EHS compliance. This included seeing one of my hazardous waste management clients get sent to jail over environmental issues, another client’s management team threatened with jail time, a direct competitor get fined $378,000 by OSHA fine after an employee was nearly killed, and many others face major fines and penalties. Full disclosure, one of my companies got fined by OSHA at one point, & another was cited by TCEQ, so I know how it feels. In summary, I learned first hand how incredibly difficult it is for small companies to manage EHS compliance due to a common lack of the critical expertise, time and resources that are needed to keep up, and how this situation then ends up exposing them to these potentially catastrophic risks that can literally destroy lives and businesses. This later inspired me to found my 4th company, Berg Compliance Solutions in 2012, which is dedicated to helping other small businesses, and business owners, to manage EHS compliance and risk. Education BA, Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder, December, 1990. Summary of Professional Experience & Qualifications: 30+ years serving the manufacturing & industrial services sectors 30+ years of sales and marketing experience 16+ years as small business owner & entrepreneur: Founded and operated 4 small businesses since 2003. Environmental, Health & Safety Compliance & Program Related: 19 plus years of hazardous waste management including EPA, TCEQ & RCRA regulations 8 years of DOT/FMCSA compliance experience, including hazardous materials transportation 8 years of combined experience implementing and managing OSHA health and safety compliance programs for 2 high risk energy services businesses Successfully implemented and gained ISO 9001 Quality Management Certification and OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health & Safety Advisory Service) Certification for wind energy maintenance business. Regulatory Enforcement Related Experience: Served as expert witness in criminal environmental compliance enforcement cases Superfund-CERCLA OSHA enforcement inspections, investigations and resolution in following industries: industrial services, manufacturing & construction. TCEQ enforcement inspections, investigations and resolution in manufacturing.