OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This is the government body that is responsible for regulating safety practices on job sites. Anyone working in the construction, electrical or manufacturing field knows that OSHA violations are no joke. Your entire company could be at risk with enough OSHA violations. The width and scope of OSHA requirements is huge, but most of them are obvious. Like, you need to have proper scaffolding when working on tall projects, something rickety or just thrown together is likely to collapse, injuring whoever was on top of the scaffolding.
Many of the OSHA requirements have to do with equipment. If you work in any sort of hazardous environment, there is are requirements to the safety gear that you’ll need to be wearing. A good example is the basic hardhat—anyone on an active job site is supposedly to be wearing a hardhat to protect themselves from falling tools, materials or debris.
Gloves used for hazardous jobs, such as those dealing with high heat, electricity, or hazardous materials also require specific gloves. It is important to make sure your company is in OSHA compliance for gloves by having them tested by a third party laboratory. Even after your gloves are tested, they will need to be re-tested every 6 months to ensure that they are still protecting as well as they need to be. It sounds tedious, and a pain — but an injury on the job will end up costing several thousands times more than getting gloves tested (which is about $16 per glove). You want to avoid the injuries, the worker’s compensation claims, the insurance claims, time lost and pain and suffering.
If you keep yourself and your employees safe, they will be happier and stronger, which means your company will also be happier and stronger.