Is your business compliant with the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA)? Running a business, from healthcare services to a retail or corporate company, involves many legal requirements. One of the most important mandatory legalities businesses must follow is OSHA regulations.
OSHA enforces different best practices and protocols that maximize health and safety to enhance workplaces and working conditions. Complying with OSHA offers multiple benefits, aside from completing legal requirements. It enhances productivity, establishes better relationships with employees and customers, and generates more ethical business practices. All OSHA violations lead to more requirement fulfillment and penalties if handled incorrectly. Here is how to create a corrective action plan (CAP) to meet your OSHA compliance requirements and solve violations.
What Is an OSHA Corrective Action Plan?
Formulating a corrective action plan is one of the many major steps and protocols enforced when OSHA finds a violation. It’s a detailed written plan of how you’ll solve or mitigate any cited compliance violations brought to OSHA’s attention.
You can solve a violation issue in several ways—depending on the compliance breach in question—affecting the CAP your business responds with after receiving a citation. Common action plans include:
- Staff training and enhancing OSHA Education
- Physical changes to your workplace
- Implementation of new practices or equipment
- Hazard and danger removal
What Do You Do Before and After You Make a Plan?
Administering a hazard assessment and writing up your version of the violation details will generate a successful action plan that OSHA will approve. Assessing the issue of concern affects whether you need to file for a re-evaluation or move forward with a CAP. If the citation is accurate, state your version of the details and evaluate the cause. Finding the root of the violation allows you to better solve and cater to the issue at hand. You have five days until you need to respond to OSHA.
After writing up a CAP, send your report back to an OSHA representative. If your plan receives their approval, put your CAP into action. If they reject your CAP, you must write a new one.
What Should You Include in a CAP?
As previously mentioned, CAPs should include your write-up of the violation details and your goals to fix the issues at hand. It should include step-by-step actions, desired implementation and completion time, and clear and concise language. Make sure you state the following:
- Specific plans of action
- Measurable data
- How much time will you spend on resolving the issue? Who will be implementing the action plan? How many people will it involve?
- Achievable goals and actions
- Relevant goals that relate to solving the violation
- Target time bounds (or timeline estimations)
Using S.M.A.R.T. goals as your CAP guidelines better guarantees OSHA approval and makes resolving violation breaches easier.
Knowing how to create a corrective action plan for OSHA minimizes the risk of losing compliance, facing penalties, and putting more people in danger of hazards. A successful CAP maintains your OSHA compliance and maximizes the health and safety of your workplace. Whether you manage a dental office, fashion boutique, or financial agency, all businesses will encounter a situation where OSHA will require a CAP. Health and safety dangers don’t discriminate. Knowing how to effectively reduce and solve hazards keeps your business on the path to success.