OSHA Implements New Inspection Weighting System

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently implemented the OSHA Weighting System for fiscal year 2020.

The new weighting system encourages companies to allocate appropriate resources to support OSHA’s approach for promoting safe and healthy workplaces.

OSHA has also budgeted for an additional 42 compliance officers and specialists for the 2020 fiscal year.

Under the current enforcement system, OSHA weights certain inspections based on the time taken to complete the inspection or, in some cases, the impact of the inspection on workplace safety and health.

OWS recognizes that time is not the only factor to assess when considering the potential impact of an inspection.

Other factors—including types of hazards inspected and abated, and effective targeting—also influence the impact on workplace safety and health.

Enforcement Initiatives

The new protocol adds enforcement initiatives such as site-specific targeting to the weighting system.

OWS replaces the current enforcement weighting system initiated in fiscal year 2015.

The new system is based on an evaluation of existing criteria and a working group’s recommendations regarding improvements.

OSHA has been running the new weighting system to confirm data integrity.  

The system will continue to weight inspections, but will do so based on other factors, including agency priorities and the impact of inspections, rather than simply on a time-weighted basis.

OWS became effective October 1, 2019.

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For more information, contact CBIA’s Phillip Montgomery (860.244.1982).