Self-audits can win you good faith with OSHA
October 1, 2000 less than 1 minute read
Self-audits can win you good faith with OSHA
If you conduct a self-audit of your health and safety program, the findings won’t be held against you and may, in fact, win you "good faith" with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). "We’re formalizing this policy because we want employers to find and fix hazards and not fear that we’ll use this information against them," OSHA administrator Charles N. Jeffress said in a statement.
"Self-audits" include an evaluation by an outside consultant or by management-employee safety teams. A self-audit and subsequent corrective measures can provide evidence of "good faith" in an OSHA inspection, allowing for a reduction of penalties of up to 25% in an OSHA inspection.
OSHA also assured employers that self-audits would not be used to trigger citations. Inspectors will not routinely ask for self-audit reports and won’t issue a citation for a hazard uncovered in a self-audit if it has been corrected and steps were taken to prevent its recurrence.
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