Contractor Safety Meeting Manual or E H & Safety Manual?
In our fall protection training last week a contractor showed us what he thought was an OSHA E H & S Manual purchased online. He said "I should be set now for the OSHA inspector".
The contractor actually had a book of job site tool box topics and the book was advertised as a Contractor Safety Meeting Manual, not a E H Safety Manual. The confusion is understandable for anyone vaguely familiar with OSHA.
If you saw Safety and Manual in the topic line would you know the difference?
It is very important to know what information you can rely on.
Our OSHA outreach instructor said if OSHA came on site and saw it the contractor would be told this is not a safety manual.
Unfortunately the contractor wasted his money on what he thought was a safety manual. Tool box talk topics are useful for training however they need to be supported by the foundation in a safety plan and manual. The contractor said the information was sent from a siding and window supplier warning contractors that OSHA is seeking safety manuals on site visits. The supplier claimed contractors were being penalized for not having a safety manual.
OSHA requires all businesses with employees to have a safety program and manual for their company. Recently we have seen numerous press releases from OSHA about companies fined for failure to have a training program for their employees.
New Workshop to help contractors unfamiliar with OSHA protocol to develop their own Enviromental Health & Safety Manual.
Safety Trainers, Inc and The Contractor Coaching Partnership, Inc have produced a workshop designed to help residential contractors create a E H and S Manual for their business.
We are told by many contractors that they are unfamiliar and uncomfortable;
- Going to the OSHA website to develop their own manual
- Inviting OSHA in to assist with their manual
- Ordering an OSHA Manual template on line and then doing the work of customizing it to their business.
- Not sure how to navigate the OSHA rules and maize
- Not sure who they can rely on for the right guidance.
For these reasons we are conducting a four session workshop to help contractors develop their own manual for their business to comply with the OSHA standards.
Here is the link with more information. EH & Safety Manual Workshop