The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) made 32,020 inspections in 2018 compared with 31,948 in 2016. Employers can expect the focus to continue on the traditional enforcement priorities with which most employers are familiar, especially responding to employee complaints.
Central to OSHA enforcement is workplace inspections. They can be initiated because of routine inspection programming, as the result of an employee complaint, or as part of a workplace accident investigation. While an employer may not have control over why or when an inspection is to take place, they have a great deal of control over its results. Proper planning for an eventual OSHA inspection can mean the difference between a clean bill of health or multiple citations and their attendant fines.