OSHA to require electronic reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses

May 18th, 2016 by Dakota Software Staff Industry News

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is moving forward with plans to make workplace illness and injury information available online. That plan attracted plenty of attention and disapproval from businesses, trade groups and other stakeholders, as the data will be accessible to the general public. According to political news site The Hill, OSHA's main motivation in releasing the data is to increase the pressure on listed businesses to improve their health and safety efforts. According to Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, OSHA believes public scrutiny will be a major motivator in improving workplace conditions.

"More attention to safety will save the lives and limbs of many workers," Michaels told reporters, according to The Hill. "No employer wants to be seen publicly as operating a dangerous workplace."

OSHA pushes for more visibility, better analysis
Michaels said the visibility of injury and illness data on the individual employer level is very low. He noted just a handful of people review the logs and there was more value to be had from that information. The controversial plan of making incident data available to the general public aside, there are some other major applications for the records. It will be easier for regulators and businesses to identify trends in data, while employers can measure their performance against other, similar businesses to determine relative success with safety compliance. They can also set goals based not only on internal reporting but that of other organizations that resemble them.

Similarities to an existing strategy
OSHA frequently sends out press releases when a business is found to be serious, willful or repeat violators of various health and safety rules. The regulator takes the same action when the fines facing an organization are particularly high and therefore notable. Those press releases inevitably make their way into local and national news stories about OSHA violations and are sometimes cited in broader pieces about worker safety and other concerns.

The release of employer data could fill this same role, but in a way that doesn't require a media outlet to pick up on a release about a specific business and write a story. It's also likely that members of the media will draw on this data in a big-picture approach similar to what OSHA believes companies will do and look for trends in workplace injuries and illnesses.

Which businesses will be affected?
In terms of sheer numbers, many companies will be forced to participate in the public sharing of injury and illness data. EHS Today highlighted data from OSHA about the initiative that shows which types of organizations will have to share their information. About 466,000 enterprises will be tied to the program altogether. The majority - 432,000 in all - are mid-sized companies with between 50 and 249 employees involved in industries with high injury and illness risks for employees. The other businesses involved, making up the other 34,000 from the total number, are larger organizations with more than 250 employees. Overall, OSHA believes there are between 7 and 8 million workplaces in the country. Of that group, 1.3 million have to report illness and injury information to OSHA.

While the start date for the rule is technically in August, the requirements won't come into effect until next year. According to the OSHA Fact Sheet, all qualifying businesses will be required to begin reporting data electronically in July 2017. Additionally, beginning in 2019, the submission deadline for OSHA Forms 300, 300A, and 301 will be changed from July 1st to March 2nd. Companies that are capturing this information in an EHS management platform will be well positioned for these changes.