Despite significant progress in safety measures and regulations, violations continue to persist year after year. Penalties for the top 10 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations cost businesses over $85 million, which underscores the importance of proper employee safety training to raise awareness of common workplace hazards and avoid them.

Join Certified Safety Professional, Dan Hannan, as he discusses how to foster a workplace that prioritizes safety and compliance in the dynamic landscape of OSHA regulations.

This webinar will provide insights into OSHA fines, essential training, and equip participants with the knowledge and tools to ensure compliance and avoid potential fines in 2024.

Key topics include:

• OSHA regulations and key compliance requirements
• Identification of common violations leading to fines and strategies to avoid them
• Practical insights from real-life case studies to reinforce learning
• Development of a proactive training strategy to ensure a safe and compliant workplace

Webinar Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome to our webinar, “OSHA Essential Training for Workplace Compliance.” I’m Lauren with Vector Solutions, and I’ll be serving as your webinar organizer today. We’re very excited to welcome you and provide this opportunity to hear from Dan Hannan, certified safety professional and OSHA outreach instructor, and Michael Ojdana, chief learning officer at Vector Solutions, on how to create a safety-driven workplace that complies with ever-evolving OSHA regulations.

We are Vector Solutions, and we aim to make your organization safer, smarter, and better. If you’re not familiar with us, we make learning management systems, online training courses, and accredited continuing education for many industries. We also offer a risk intelligence and communication platform, as well as EHS and SDS management software.

Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dan Hannan, and I can think of no better way to celebrate Saint Valentine’s Day and share the love than to talk about OSHA compliance and enforcement.

A few little nuggets about me. I’m a health and safety professional. I’ve been at this for more than 30 years. I’ve served as a state regulator working for the state of Minnesota EPA. I’ve worked in private consulting previously, a little bit of insurance on the broker side as a loss control professional. I’ve also applied safety and risk management processes in both construction and manufacturing settings. And just as important, yes, I’ve sat across the table from OSHA compliance officers at informal conferences to negotiate penalties. So that’s a quick tour of who I am and my background.

Yeah. Thanks, Dan. Hey, everyone. I’m Michael Ojdana. Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone as well. I’m the chief learning officer at Vector Solutions. I’ve got about 14 years of experience creating safety and industrial-related e-learning content with Convergence Training and then with Vector Solutions after the acquisition. As chief learning officer, I drive our strategic direction of our content as well as lead our accreditations, learning experience design, development, and delivery teams across all of our commercial, education, and public sector businesses. That’s all about me. I’ll send you back over to Dan.

Agenda Overview

Hey, thanks, Michael. Briefly, here’s our agenda for today: OSHA regulations and key compliance requirements; we’re going to take a look at that, as well as common violations that lead to fines and strategies to avoid them; employer training obligations; practical insights from real-life case studies to reinforce what we’re going to be hearing about today; and development of a proactive compliance and training strategy as well.

The Basis for Compliance and Training

So, the basis for compliance as it relates to training really starts with the general duty clause. I felt that this was important, as it lays the groundwork. Employers are to provide their employees a place of employment free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm.

There are quite a few places, both specific and general references to training throughout the OSHA standards. Several of the general directives to employers are on the screen. I put these on here again to help frame the discussion for today. These relate to both construction and the general industry.

In construction, we’re talking about the 29 CFR 1926 requirements. That first bullet point is there to initiate and maintain such programs as may be necessary to comply with the part. And those programs include training. The employer shall permit only those employees qualified by training or experience to operate equipment or machinery. So, again, a couple of different examples are there within the construction standards.

On the general industry side, again, training standards in this part require training on hazards related to matters such as standards requiring that employees receive training or that the employer trains employees, provides training to employees, and so on and so forth. That comes out of the 1910 standard subpart A.

The example at the bottom of the screen, again, is that I’m based in Minnesota. I must comply with not only the federal standards but also the state plan and program here. We have a Minnesota OSHA. We have something that’s called AWARE—a workplace-accident-incident-reduction program. And within that program, it’s very similar to the proposed I2P2, or injury illness prevention program, at the federal level. However, there are very specific requirements directing employers to include specific types of training for their workers.

Again, a lot of what we’re talking about today is based on federal standards. But I’m going to say this a few times: you have to make sure that you look at any state requirements that apply to your state plan, state OSHA programs, or even, locally, maybe even at the county or city level.

Consequences of Enforcement Actions

So, what’s at stake with an enforcement action? Some of these are pretty obvious, but I felt it was important to review them.

Bad PR (Publicity or Public Relations)

You don’t want to be in the news for the wrong reasons, such as having a severe injury or even a fatality within your workplace, and then, of course, to be visited and cited by OSHA.

Morale

Nobody wants to work for an employer that doesn’t adequately protect their workers. That can easily be demonstrated through surveys. We’ve seen it time and time again, where a bad work environment that doesn’t keep injuries in check really doesn’t do much for morale.

Ensuing actions are enhanced by previous actions.

What I’m after there is that the history of violations adds up, especially for those of the same type. So, whether it’s willful, repeated, or failure to abate, they do add up. What I mean by that is it’s more than one plus one—it equals way more than two—because during the course of looking at a company’s safety and enforcement history, OSHA will look at previous actions, and they can really pile on in a hurry.

Monetary fines come off the profit bottom line.

Unfortunately, there’s no OSHA violation line of insurance; you can’t go out and buy any protection in the form of insurance to protect yourself from any OSHA citations.

On the right-hand side, under the microscope by OSHA for an extended period of time—it is absolutely true. We’re going to see that here in just a minute when we talk about the Severe Violator Enforcement Program, which is the next bullet item. If you have not heard about this, this is really the list of the really bad actors—it’s kind of the worst of the worst. At the bottom of the screen, there is a little synopsis that summarizes what the SVE program is. It concentrates resources—I’m talking about OSHA resources—on inspecting employers who have demonstrated indifference to their OSHA Act obligations by willful, repeat, or failure to obey violations. You do not want to be on that list, believe me.

Then, revenue opportunities are lost through disclosure of enforcement action and safety questionnaires. As an employer and a company providing a service to others on an annual basis, we are required to provide information about our safety performance to customers or clients who want to hire us. Part of that process is filling out a safety questionnaire or, if you’re familiar with the prequalification or vetting systems like ISNetworld, Avetta, or PEX, you have to disclose your safety performance information—your incident rate, your DART rate, EMR, and whether or not you have recorded enforcement actions against you, usually within the last three or five years. When you start to check that box and indicate that you have had enforcement actions, your score basically goes down. You’re cast in a bad light by those clients or customers who want to hire you. So, it doesn’t do you any favors at all once you start to record and recognize OSHA’s enforcement actions.

Publicized Enforcement Actions and Case Examples

When the health and well-being of the workforce is not a priority, what can happen? I picked out a couple of examples of highly publicized enforcement actions. All OSHA enforcement actions are public information, if you didn’t know that. We’re going to see here in just a minute where you can go to find that information. But these are two cases—pretty recent, this last December—where OSHA really goes out of its way to make it public in cases where there are some really bad companies that have performed poorly and have received very large enforcement actions in terms of dollar amount.

The top example: here’s a roofing contractor out of Ohio that was issued a fine of $730,000. I’m not going to read the summary underneath each of those, but if you read some of that information, this particular employer has an extensive history of exposing workers to deadly falls. The bottom portion of that goes on to describe that there are twelve violations that basically identified and added up to the $730,000 citation or fine.

OSHA compliance officers do exercise some discretion. Their enforcement authority does allow them to do that. There is discretion that they can use to identify the violations and cite and issue the monetary penalty portion of it. But I will mention this: most oftentimes, the approach is to issue and recognize a violation on a daily basis. So it is a violation per day. It is an ensuing dollar amount for that violation per day. As the days go by without any type of corrective action, those violations can add up in a hurry.

The bottom one on the screen is a very, very large penalty at $1.8 million, as a result of a corn mill explosion that killed five workers.

Types of OSHA Violations and Their Costs

So, the types of OSHA violations and their costs. On the left-hand side, we basically have the list of those different types of violations and the gravity of violations that can be administered by OSHA. Probably the weakest, the simplest one that’s oftentimes used is what they call the de minimis. It’s essentially a verbal warning. Noncompliance is noted, but really, there’s no monetary penalty. When there’s no intent or egregious nature to a violation, and it’s pretty harmless, it usually falls into that de minimis category.

Other than serious: when an issue is minor, it doesn’t pose a significant threat. Then we move into the more serious types of violations—serious, willful, repeated, and failure-to-abate. The last three, though, are kind of the biggies. Willful means you intentionally went out of your way to willfully violate, overlook, and basically not abide by a standard or regulation. Repeated violations are exactly that—they’ve been issued, and there’s a repeated nature to skirt the standard or the regulation, and it results in a repeated type of action. Then failure to abate: this usually occurs when a violation or a citation has been issued. The compliance officer for OSHA asks that certain corrective actions be taken, and you have to prove and demonstrate that those corrective actions have been completed. If the employer fails to do that, it could either be failing to provide the right documentation, including photographs and receipts for things that have been required to make improvements in the workplace, or the OSHA compliance officer will revisit the workplace and inspect. When those corrective actions haven’t been completed, they result in a failure to abate, as well as citations.

Top OSHA Violations

So, the top ten OSHA violations are from twenty-three. If you subscribe to any of the major professional safety journals, most of them do, at the beginning of January of the following year, they will summarize and look at their data right through OSHA, and summarize the top ten violations that OSHA winds up citing in the course of a given year.

What’s interesting about these is that it’s really a matter of shuffling the deck. If you look back over the last 7, 8, 9, or even 10 years, almost all of these 10 have appeared on that list in various orders. Very common. Again, a lot of employers struggle with maintaining compliance in some of these particular areas.

The example on the screen on the right-hand side—I’ll just read that real quickly. A 29-year-old female sanitation worker was placed at the facility by a staffing agency. She was found decapitated after using compressed air to clean a spiral conveyor as it moved to cool pizza. OSHA inspectors determined that temporary workers were neither trained nor given authority to stop moving equipment before cleaning. That resulted in a $2.8 million citation. So, they were neither trained nor given the authority to stop moving equipment before cleaning.

So really what we’re talking about is energy isolation, which would speak to number 6 on that list, lockout/tagout. But I do like to see, though, in this case, if you have followed this list at all over the last few years, it’s nice to see that workplace violence has dropped off the list.

If you go back, oh, 4 or 5 years, what you saw was workplace violence. In most cases, as a result of mass shootings, they actually climbed up the list here. I believe it rose as high as number 4 or 5 on the list just a few years ago. So it’s nice to see that employers are paying more attention to that.

Sadly, workplace violence is now considered a recognizable hazard. So, even though there’s not a specific standard that addresses workplace violence, OSHA is using that five-in-one general duty clause to say, you know what? Unfortunately, in this day and age, workplace violence is real. It’s a recognized hazard. And you, as an employer, have to do what you can to keep your employees safe in that regard.

OSHA’s Enforcement Priorities

This is really the kind of pecking order that OSHA uses to allocate its compliance resources, compliance officers, and administrative personnel.

So, how do they qualify the gravity of these different types of issues or concerns that come up with respect to workplace safety?

Seeing, receiving a call, or other means of notification, OSHA responds accordingly, basically in the following order of importance.

When I say seeing, yes, there are instances where you have a compliance officer who is driving down the road or on duty, and they absolutely have the authority. If they see something at a worksite—in my case, it’s frequently a construction site because they’re highly visible—that compliance officer has the authority to actually turn their car around and enter that worksite and start to question what’s going on. So in that case, it would probably align with an imminent danger.

So, again, driving down the road, seeing a worker standing on some steel. They’re setting steel or on an unguarded edge. If it’s a concrete platform or something along those lines and they’re not tied off, there’s no evidence of fall protection in play. Again, they absolutely have that authority and can certainly do that.

Workplace fatality or serious injury would be the next one, of course. OSHA absolutely has the authority. In fact, they’ve got the responsibility of investigating all workplace fatalities and serious injuries. So aside from foul play, local law enforcement would get involved following a workplace fatality to rule out any type of homicide or foul play. It is OSHA’s show. OSHA then works with the employer to conduct an investigation to determine the cause. And again, sadly, a worker has passed away or died, which is sad in itself. However, if there is reason to believe that there was a violation at play, the employer can also receive a citation.

Next on the list are complaints. Of course, I’m not going to get into that in really much more detail.

Federal, state, or local referral. Yes, it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen on occasion, where another agency, like an EPA or a DOT, will be conducting an inspection or a visit at a worksite and sees a situation that applies to an unsafe condition within the workplace, and they’ll make a referral to OSHA. They’ll say, “Hey, I was out at this job site, office location. Saw this. You might want to take a peek at it.”

Number five—targeted—really gets into special-emphasis programs. A few years ago, they did one on trenching and excavating, where they’ll actually make it a point of seeking out and watching for those employers that, let’s say, are excavating or digging and putting people in potentially harm’s way by getting into trenches.

Then, the follow-up is where an inspection may have occurred. They’ve requested corrective action, and they go back to the job site.

Facts About OSHA Fines

Most cases’ citations can and should be contested. If you are on the receiving end of an OSHA citation, you have a certain number of days to respond to that in writing. By certified mail, you have the opportunity to contest the merit, the gravity, or the dollar amount, and I suggest you test all of it. OSHA may have its facts wrong. They may be way out of whack in the proposed dollar amount. And oftentimes, of course, those are negotiable. Again, the merit of the gravity is always in play. And, I would highly encourage you to contest everything that you can.

Monetary penalties are not subject to insurance claim coverage, as I said. So don’t even think about calling your insurance company to say, “Hey, can you cover this hundred thousand dollar citation that we just received?”

Citations and fines are tracked in a national database that’s open to the public. We’re gonna see that here in just a couple of minutes.

Citations and fines are never levied on the day of inspection. I’ve walked many a job site, many a facility, shoulder to shoulder with a compliance officer from OSHA. If they find something that’s not compliant—let’s say it’s an unmarked container that should have labels and markings on it to conform to the hazard communication requirements—you go back to the closing conference. You sit in the office afterwards and they run through their laundry list. They will never, ever take out a ticket book and write you a ticket. It’s not like a parking violation or a speeding ticket. They won’t say, “Here’s your ticket. Get to pay this particular dollar amount.” What they’ll do is go back to their office. Of course, it comes in a more formal means, through the issued citation that comes certified mail, but they’ll never, ever do that.

Correcting an unsafe condition during an inspection does not mean it cannot be cited, and they have that discretion. Again, if they see something that’s not quite right—let’s say a fire extinguisher didn’t have its monthly inspection on it and you quickly said, “Well, I’m going to inspect it right now,” and you initial it and date it—most oftentimes, they’re not going to count that, and they’re still going to cite you for it. But again, they do have some discretion in that regard.

The OSHA Establishment Search

So I’ve been mentioning this, I think just a couple of times, that basically, the federal OSHA entity compiles all federal and state compliance enforcement actions through a database. Motion citations again are public knowledge. The website that you can go to at any time is OSHA.gov. In the upper right-hand corner, there’s a little search box. And if you just type in establishment search, it’s going to bring you basically to a screen where you can drop in different parameters, including the company name, date range, and those kinds of things. And you can start searching. You can search for really any company by any name, just about any name.

So on the screen, what I did was take the liberty since I’m out of Minneapolis-St. Paul area, to look at the compliance history of a small company called 3M, since their corporate headquarters is located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The thing to note here is that on the right-hand side, you can see that 3M is actually referred to by a handful of different names. 3M, 3M Company, 3M Knoxville, by their location, 3M Cottage Grove Center. So if you’re using this database to do a little bit of research on a particular company, you might have to play around with the name a little bit.

This is a great tool to use, especially if you’re vetting subcontractors working for you, and they have to provide you with a safety questionnaire about their safety performance. And if they check the box when you ask the question, have you received an OSHA citation in the last three, four, or five years? And they say no. Can go to the establishment search on the OSHA.gov website, plug in their name, and see if they’re truthful. You gotta basically try to keep them honest a little bit in that regard.

Multi-Employer Citation Authority

So, for enforcement purposes, how does OSHA define and evaluate the relationship between the facility owner, contractor, and even subcontractors? They have what’s called this multi-employer citation authority, and it really identifies four different entities that OSHA looks at.

The creating employer—the employer that caused a hazardous condition that violates the standard. A controlling employer—an employer who has general supervisory authority over the worksite, including the power to correct safety and health violations. The correcting employer—an employer who’s engaged in a common undertaking on the same worksite as the exposing employer and is responsible for correcting the hazard. And the exposing employer—an employer whose employees are exposed to the hazard.

So, you know, as a facility owner, I have the responsibility to ensure that not only my employees are properly trained but also contractors and even subcontractors working at my facility. Temporary employees are also properly trained for that.

So the example that I put in is that at the bottom of the screen, the facility owner commissions work to a contractor. A contractor worker is fatally injured. The OSHA inspection found that the contractor failed to properly train their employee to avoid the hazard and issued a citation and fine. The facility owner also receives a citation fine because they contracted the contractor, failed to ensure that the contractor properly trained their employees, and/or were providing supervision of the contractor’s work. So, in the eyes of OSHA, they were deemed a controlling employer. Because the facility, again, contracted with that entity and didn’t do their due diligence, and took the responsibility of making sure that the contractors’ employees were properly trained.

So what does training do for an employer? Well, it goes without saying that providing both knowledge and skills training is what allows employees to apply their abilities in a safe manner. That’s really what we’re after. That is the essence of the purpose of training. It’s to give them skill and the ability to recognize unsafe conditions—even unsafe behaviors—and really to apply that in their day-to-day-work activities, to keep themselves and their co-workers safe.

It prevents worker injury by keeping them out of harm’s way, again, using those hazard-recognition skills. It obviously complies with the law. There are, again, many instances where OSHA and others require employers to provide training—task training—to their employees prior to beginning a new task, and, you know, where documented training can be used to defend against an enforcement action. You know what, I’ve seen instances where documented toolbox talks have helped employers avoid or reduce the severity of a citation. So, as I say, if you didn’t document, you didn’t do. That’s why I say we’re documented. So even something as simple as a toolbox talk, ten minutes’ worth of quick-training instruction, improving their understanding of regulations and hazards, and how to apply safe work practices, as long as it’s documented that they were in attendance, and you keep a record of information that was covered. You know, keep that as a training record itself. You can actually use that, in part, to defend yourself if OSHA should knock on the door and say, “What have you done to prevent injury from this particular hazard?” Well, look, we just had a toolbox talk last week on ladder safety. And even though this employee fell off the ladder and got hurt, we did. We performed, we held up to our end of the bargain and responsibility to train this worker on this particular issue.

Employer Training Obligations

So, employer training obligations.

Employers are required to properly task-train their employees prior to assignment. I think I’d mentioned that just a minute ago. Again, it applies to temp workers. So, you know, a good example is HAZCOM. So we look at the hazard communication standard. And if your facility, let’s say, is presenting an exposure to those temp workers when they’re coming onto your facility or a different part of your facility, you have that responsibility to make sure that they are properly trained in that particular issue.

And again, if it’s exposure to a chemical, make sure they know what the signs and symptoms are, maybe of overexposure, and where to go to get a safety data sheet. Or what to do if there’s a spill or a release of a chemical. It is your responsibility to provide that training prior to them engaging in that work activity.

Where I work, we employ a lot of student interns, such as engineering students, over the summer. And even though they’re gonna be with us for a short period of time, let’s say just three months, before we put them into the field, we absolutely have to put them through and onboard them with some very basic training to make sure that we don’t put them in harm’s way. And they know very simple things, such as the stop work authority. Or, you know, when to call a time out, you know, when to basically say, don’t have enough knowledge or experience or training in this area. And I think I’m gonna think I’m putting myself in harm’s way. So those are good examples.

The amount and type of training, in many cases, are subjective and left up to the employer to determine. So the example that I put on the screen here is 29 CFR 926, safety training and education. The employer shall instruct each employee to recognize and avoid unsafe conditions and regulations. So, instruction just means providing some type of instruction or training. It doesn’t provide any detail in that respect.

Additional Employer Training Considerations

However, in other cases, these specific amounts of time are identified.

The examples that I use are the OSHA 10– and 30-hour programs and the HAZWOPER standard. I’m also an authorized outreach instructor for OSHA. I’ve done many, many 10 and 30-hour programs for construction, and I also do refreshers on the HAZWOPER. In both cases, you know, there’s a pretty rigid curriculum that has to be followed and outlined within the OSHA standard and requirements.

So again, it’s another good example of where the standard does require specific topics of information. I provide a couple of examples here in the next two bullet points of the 1910, the requirement there, and the correct use of personal fall protection systems, and then it goes into some detail. It says it’s got to be included, but not limited to proper hookup, anchoring, and tie off techniques, methods for equipment inspection, and the 1926.21 employees required to handle flammable liquids gases or toxic materials shall be instructed in the safe handling and use of these materials, made aware of the specific requirements contained in subparts D and F. So there it’s referencing additional subparts, the standard that you have to look into.

So remember, the OSHA regulation provides minimal health and safety protections. Don’t forget where OSHA is incorporated in other standards by reference; those requirements apply to some of the examples that I provide, there are ANSI, ASTM, NFPA, SA8, the DOT, and, of course, UL, which is Underwriter Laboratories. So, if you’re not familiar with those acronyms, you need to be. But just to note that, again, at the beginning of each of the standards, there are four of them. There’s a construction, there’s the general industry, there’s agriculture, and there’s marine. So, each of those OSHA regulations, for those industries, the beginning of each of those standards has a specific line item that says incorporated by reference. If you wanna take a hard look at that because there are additional requirements that apply, the reference again to those voluntary or consensus standards, and many of those have training requirements associated with them, too.

Is training transferable from one employer to another? Yes and no. A certificate card, a history, badges, and other forms of training can be transferred, provided that it’s not expired. Based on a required renewal refresher date, you know, the example that I use is powered industrial trucks, right, or forklifts. We know that initial training is required, but every 3 years, the employer is obligated to reevaluate that operator to make sure they can safely operate that piece of equipment. They’re qualified. They’re authorized to use it.

It applies to the task or equipment being used in the workplace, of course. That a skill or competency has not lapsed. So if you’re bringing on a new employee or they’ve been with you for a long time and they’re honest with you and they say, you know, it’s been a few years since I operated that scissor lift. Know that it’s really in your best interest to take the time to requalify them. Put them through the paces. Test their knowledge and, of course, test their skill to verify that they’re competent and that they can safely operate that piece of equipment.

And lastly, the training program or content can be verified, for example, that I provide it through an accredited institution. So in the case of operating a crane and construction. We know that there is a certification that comes with being an operator for a crane, and that certification can only be provided by an accredited institution that OSHA recognizes.

So, you’ve really got to know as an employer what’s at play and what the requirements are when it comes to, you know, some of the training requirements, especially if it’s transferable from one employer to another.

Who Needs to Be Trained and to What Degree?

Who needs to be trained and to what degree? Of course, all workers. All workers should receive some type of training. That’s usually done upon hire. Something as simple as emergency action plans, fire, severe weather, and medical emergencies. That applies to everyone, really, within the organization.

Some workers, due to increased responsibilities, are required to possess more training. These persons are often identified by employers as supervisors, foremen, and crew leaders. They have, again, kind of risen to the top in terms of their responsibilities. OSHA identifies a lot of these enhanced knowledge or skill roles as a competent person, a qualified person, or an authorized person. So, the examples that I provide are of a competent person who specifically calls out the OSHA regulations to perform a daily inspection of all scaffolding. Only qualified riggers are allowed to perform rigging operations where cranes are used in construction, and then authorized persons are allowed to apply locks and tags as part of an energy isolation program.

How and When to Provide Training

How should training be provided, and when should online training be introduced?

At the time of hire—of course, first day, first hour—I started to employ this some six or seven years ago, with all new hires coming into my organization. It really is a great way to set the tone and expectations for safety when that hiring manager sits one-on-one with the new hire. That first day, first hour—usually within the first week of employment—looks into their eyes and takes a solid hour, maybe more, to really talk about what the expectations are within your organization about safety. Boy, that sends a really strong message, and it really sets that safety-first mindset, I think, within that new hire, that employee.

So, as I say, it’s not a handout or a video. It’s really easy to do that—just hand them a booklet or a piece of paper and say, “Go sit in the corner and read these safety policies.” Or, you know, “This is how we want you to behave and do safety. Look at this video.” It’s much more influential and impressionable if you sit down one-on-one and have those conversations.

Prior to task assignment, of course, that’s an absolute. Before you assign somebody a task, they have to be properly trained—periodically as needed—based on the type of task or risk.

Annually, when required by regulation, some of the requirements—such as the training requirements within certain parts of the regulations—are again reviewed. Mandate a refresher. In the case of HAZWOPER, annually, they have to go through, of course, an eight-hour refresher on it. Retraining is required based on the safe execution of duties. That 1910.178 is that power industrial truck or forklift operator. The operator has been observed to operate the vehicle in an unsafe manner. These are instances where there’s been an incident—maybe an accident of some sort. We’ve identified through root cause analysis that there was a lack of training, and we need to put them through some additional refresher training.

Vector Solutions Safety Training Overview

Thanks, Dan. Really great information there.

I’m going to take a few minutes here to discuss Vector safety training as well. And for those who don’t know, Dan also acts as a subject matter expert for many of our courses as well.

But at Vector, our online safety courses are the first step for companies to make a powerful impact on employee safety in the areas of hazards, compliance, and risk mitigation. With our training, organizations find that employees are empowered to proactively identify hazards, promote safe practices, and foster a culture of prevention, ultimately leading to less risk in the workplace injury or death.

You know, as Dan discussed, proper training ensures that organizations maintain compliance with key regulations. So if OSHA does come knocking, our customers are audit-ready, avoiding penalties and reputational damage fines. And finally, mitigating risk goes hand in hand with all of this. Employee safety training mitigates risk by equipping employees with the necessary skills and knowledge to identify and address hazards, which leads to fewer accidents, injuries, and associated costs.

What Differentiates Vector Solutions

So what differentiates Vector Solutions when it comes to our online safety courses in the areas of hazard awareness, maintaining compliance, and mitigating risk?

Well, we update and release more than 40 safety-related courses every year to address the latest regulations and keep new material in front of your employees. Also, our extensive multilingual training experience drives consistency across a diverse workforce, helping to further risk mitigation efforts. And finally, we also offer retention-focused training that utilizes micro-learning practices and safety-case studies, averaging around 5 minutes in length, ensuring that employees retain and apply the knowledge effectively.

By prioritizing these factors, safety-training programs when working with Vector Solutions are both effective and adaptable.

Diving deeper here, with over 400 titles in our library, we truly serve as a one-stop-shop for required safety training, including the following top 4 topics, which are all completed on average 100,000 times yearly by all of our customers. Hazard communication is required for new hires and anytime a change is made or a hazard is added. Bloodborne pathogens are required for new hires and on an annual basis. Hearing conservation is required both for new hires and on an annual basis, and PPE is required for new hires and at any time new equipment or hazards are presented. These courses correspond directly to OSHA’s focus areas and regulations. Their utilization occurs primarily across organizations such as OSHA, subject to OSHA regulations and compliance, such as manufacturing, industrial, facilities maintenance, and construction and engineering companies, as well.

The pandemic and OSHA’s continued recognition of online safety have contributed to the increase in reliance on our training. So not only do we have all those courses in English, but for our top safety courses, we’ve also got tons of human-translated courses. This slide shows our top ten course topics. As you can see, many of our top ten courses are translated into many languages, and all of the top ten are in Spanish and French. This is important because OSHA requires and will cite companies if they don’t provide training in a language that the employee understands.

Microlearning and Refresher Training

One of the most effective methods of refresher training is microlearning. Microlearning helps improve retention by providing bite-sized content and shorter modules designed to increase retention and memory recall.

The use of microlearning to learn key safety topics parallels our increased consumption of short topics on social media platforms. This has become a core means of accessing and processing information for business and for pleasure. Surveys show that consumers consider short-form videos to be two and a half times more engaging than long-form videos.

At Vector, we offer a library of courses averaging about five minutes in length that can be tracked and assigned in an LMS. Some of those topics include how to use a fire extinguisher, proper lifting techniques, forklift stability, how to put on a body harness, defensive driving techniques, using automatic AEDs, how to perform CPR, and proper hand-washing practices.

This library also includes what we call safety case studies that use a combination of highly emotional interviews with victims, three-dimensional and two-dimensional recreation of events, along with information on what could have been done differently to avoid that incident. There are sixteen of those, and these won six Telly Awards last year. Those Telly Awards honor excellence in video and television across all screens. They’re judged by leaders from video platforms, television, streaming networks, production companies, including Adobe, BBC, Netflix, and the like. This year was the first time Vector actually won a gold medal for Tellys, and it was in the category of health and safety for our safety case study on properly securing a cylindrical load. We’re not gonna play that for you here during the webinar, but we will supply that post-webinar in the links, and I strongly encourage you all to give it a view. It’s really powerful stuff.

Yeah. So, as mentioned—and you’ll see in that video—we’re really trying to engage with learners on an emotional level and focus on real-life situations and problems, which will lead to increased engagement and retention. You will also see from that course that we use high-quality visuals and a lot of 3D animation to show rather than just tell. We’ll also be introducing video branching into our safety courses later in the year, which also allows learners to make decisions based on a given scenario.

When reviewing training providers, remember that not all training is created equal, and above all, you need a provider that will continually invest in refreshing content to meet the needs of learners and new regulations. On top of our content, a holistic approach should be taken, with training offered in different modalities. As Dan mentioned, these could be toolbox talks, team meeting discussions, webinars, and more to ensure that your employees are not only compliant with regulations but also go home safe to their families every day.

Lastly, humans forget about 70% of new information within 24 hours of ingesting it. You can’t just take a course once a year and call it good. You need to keep information in front of your employees often and in different ways that are engaging, and remind them of the importance of safe behaviors to prevent injuries. This can be done throughout the year by providing ongoing refresher training.

Q&A Session

Overlooked OSHA Violations

OSHA Inspection Steps to Take

Training Instructions in Writing

Noncompliance Consequences Beyond Fines

Training When Budgets are Tight

Final Thoughts

Okay, so I think that’s all we have time for today. I just want to say thank you again to Dan and Michael Ojdana for the lively and educational discussion, and thank you to all of our attendees for joining us. We know that your time is valuable, and we appreciate that you spent the last hour with us.

So, as mentioned at the beginning of the webinar, this recording will be sent to you along with the slides and some educational resources. Have a great day, and thank you again for joining us. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Dan.