January 9, 2017
OSHA records? What OSHA records?
At one of my previous companies, I walked down the hall one day to the office of the new Safety Director. I needed to get the OSHA records for the company for the past three years to include in a response to a request for proposal.
I knew we were in trouble by the look on his face when I requested these records. He didn’t know where they were or where to obtain them.
I walked away thinking…well, this is a fine mess.
Almost always a request for proposal (RFP) will require the responding company to provide information about their safety records. Are you prepared to answer incredibly specific questions such as these:
- List your company’s interstate worker’s compensation experience modification rate for the past three years plus the current year.
- Do you have reason to believe that your rate for the current year will vary by more than 5% from the most recent rate?
- Using your OSHA 300 Log, provide your Incident Rate and Lost Time Rate for the past three years plus the current year. Please provide copies of your OSHA 300 Log for these years.
- How many fatalities have you experienced in the past three years plus the current year?
- Do you have a written safety program?
- Do you conduct site safety inspections?
- Do you have a drug and alcohol policy?
- Do you have an accident/incident investigation and reporting procedures?
- How do you manage subcontractor safety?
- Have you been inspected by OSHA or other industrial safety enforcement agency in the past three years or the current year?
- What safety training do you provide to your employees?
- Who has site safety responsibility?
- Who is the officer in your company with responsibility for safety?
- Describe any innovative process or approach that demonstrates your workforce’s ownership of your health and safety process and management’s guidance and support, for example, accountability programs, incentive programs, hazard recognition programs.
These are actual questions from a safety questionnaire required to be completed before you can bid. Could you readily find this information and drop it in? Wouldn’t it be nice if it was all in one place and ready to go?
Bobby Unser said, “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” If you have your ducks in a row when that opportunity comes, you will be successful.