“That’s really important that companies have a written, stated company policy that the authorization doesn’t fall on the foreman or crew leader on site, but the authorization to handle and go through an opening conference falls directly squarely on company management — the safety director, the safety consultant or upper management,” Clark said.

Similarly, following an inspection, the OSHA inspector is to let the company know what violations may have been found — including the code — and what they’ll be recommending for citations. Clark said it’s critical that companies get on record what the inspector says, even if it’s “I’m not recommending citations at this time.”

“If something does show up down the road, we can use that and say, ‘No no no, there were no violations, we have that on record, the OSHA inspector told us there were no violations at the closing conference,’” she said. “You have to know how to handle that.”

Watch the full video here for more tips and insights from Clark. To listen and download the audio version, visit our podcast page.