In the work world, you may be familiar with a more colorful iteration of the title, “New day, same stuff.”

Here we are at the beginning of a new year. And while there are new federal and state requirements surrounding business operations in this COVID-19 era, OSHA’s General Duty Clause and employer training requirements are not new.

Have you provided all of the OSHA required training for your employees? To be honest, we really need to ask a more pointed version of this question to some employers. Have you provided any of the OSHA required training for your employees? Some statistics show that a majority of workers don’t remember ever receiving any formal New Employee Training.

Did your business/place of employment experience any injuries, significant incidents or near misses in 2020? Were these due to a lack of training or understanding? Perhaps lack of experience was a contributing factor. There is a direct correlation between incidents/injuries and employee training, and this number increases for new employees.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly one-third of the nonfatal occupational injuries or illnesses that involved time away from work were suffered by workers with less than one year of service. Nearly one-quarter of these cases resulted in 31 or more days away from work.

There is an article written for The Ergonomics Open Journal, titled, “Does Safety Training Reduce Work Injury in the United States?” Authors/Researchers: Geetha M. Waehrer, Ted R. Miller. An excerpt:

“We merged U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics establishment-level data on employee training, benefits, and rates of occupational injuries and illnesses with days away from work, obtaining a data set on 2,358 establishments, 62% of them with at least 250 employees… The results suggest that safety training increases the reporting of injuries and illnesses but also has real safety effects on days-away-from-work incidents, especially in smaller firms. While overexertion incidents were resistant to safety training, toxic exposure events were reduced in manufacturing establishments with a formal safety training program.”

There is a ROI for safety and training programs.

An additional important contribution to the value and embracing of training is the employers’ (management, supervisors) overall commitment to safety. How many of the incidents, near misses or injuries are connected to employees’ valuing/embracing the employer’s “as long as I don’t see it,” “git ‘er done” or “by any means necessary” attitude?

Let’s make #SafetyTraining, #ZeroInjuries, #SafetyFirst, and #SafetyAtHome trend in 2021.

Stay tuned for our upcoming complimentary webinar, “OSHA Training Requirements in the Construction Industry and General Industry.”