It's important to have the right plan in place to help your employees and meet your responsibilities set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA recently changed its reporting and recording requirements, and some companies may not know or fully understand the new regulations.

We want to make sure you always know what to do if there is an accident at your workplace. We've got you covered with your requirements under Workers' Compensation rules, but OSHA regulations are different. And that's why we partner with people like Gaylin Peebles, the Senior Safety Consultant at Olympia Services, to help you understand your responsibilities with OSHA. It's also why Compensation Solutions, Inc. holds OSHA webinars throughout the year.

One thing that has changed for some employers is OSHA's requirements for who must use its Injury Tracking Application, put in place to improve tracking workplace injuries and illnesses. Every company with 250 employees must report through this electronic account. Certain businesses in high-risk industries who employ 20 to 249 workers, also have to file their reports online. These companies already recorded this information, but now they must also electronically submit it to OSHA. Certain employers are required to submit their 2017 information by July 1, 2018.

What should you consider to put together a workplace plan?

Know the difference between reportable and recordable.

Reportable work-related injuries involve hospitalization, loss of an eye, or amputation.

Those reports must be made to OSHA within 24 hours either online on OSHA's website, in-person visit or phone call to your area OSHA office, or a call to their toll-free central telephone number: 1-800-321-OSHA (1-800-321-6742). Based on the type of injury it was, OSHA will determine if they will come out to your company to investigate, and if you will be fined.

Recordable injuries are more minor incidents. The only thing you must do with those work-related injuries is note them on your OSHA logs and post them the following year.

Gaylin Peebles with Olympia Services says it's important to be clear on the type of injury you are dealing with. "Make sure you get the distinctions made so you don't have to call them on a recordable incident and you don't have them come out there for no reason."

Perform a Job Safety Analysis (JSA)

Look at each job at your company and determine if there are areas of deficiencies in the work process that could injure employees. "It's going to make you pay more attention to how people work and can provide an accident-free work environment for everyone." says Peebles.

Create a safety suggestion box or other type of anonymous reporting system and encourage employees to use it.

Peebles strongly recommends employers take this step to allow employees to tell them about anything hazardous or dangerous on the job. "90% of the solutions to a lot of these problems the employees know because they do the job."

And remember, it's the employers responsibility to educate employees about the changes in OSHA regulations and which injuries must be reported. OSHA's anti-retaliation rule states an employer's procedure for reporting injuries and illnesses must be reasonable and cannot discourage employees from reporting them.

OSHA Deadlines To Remember:

OSHA 300 Log Postings

• Feb. 1 – April 30: Employers must post a summary of the injuries and illnesses recorded the previous year. Logs need to be posted in a public location where all employees can see them.
• Electronic Submission of Records
• July 1, 2018: Employers with 200 – 249 employees in certain high-risk industries are required to submit their completed 2017 Form 300A for injury tracking to OSHA.
• Beginning in 2019: The electronic forms for 2018 are due March 2.

Severe Injury Reporting

Employers must report worker fatality within 8 hours.

Employers must report a worker's amputation, eye loss, or hospitalization within 24 hours.

You can find more information here: https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/

OSHA reports there were 5,190 workers killed on the job in 2016. That's more than 14 deaths every day.

You can see the top 10 most common OSHA violations for fiscal year 2017 (Oct. 1, 2016, to Sept. 30, 2017): https://www.osha.gov/Top_Ten_Standards.html