What Is OSHA & What Does It Do?

A single serious OSHA violation can cost your business up to $16,550, and willful or repeated violations can run as high as $165,514 per violation. A "violation" can stem from something as routine as a missing machine guard, an unlabeled chemical container, or the absence of a written emergency action plan.

For most employers, OSHA compliance is less about avoiding penalties and more about protecting and ensuring the safety of the people that keep your business running. This article explains what OSHA is, what it requires of you, and the practical first steps toward building a safer, compliant and inspection-ready workplace.

What Is OSHA?

OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It is a U.S. federal agency in the Department of Labor that helps ensure safe and healthy working conditions by:

• Setting and enforcing workplace safety standards
• Providing training, education, and guidance
• Inspecting workplaces
• Investigating complaints, injuries, and fatalities

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA standards cover nearly every employer in the private sector to help reduce workplace hazards, injuries, illnesses and fatalities. Those standards aren't one-size-fits-all. OSHA organizes them into four categories, and each has its own specific safety regulatory requirements:

• General Industry
• Agriculture
• Construction
• Maritime

OSHA isn't only an enforcement body. Through its On-Site Consultation Program, the agency can provide free and confidential service that helps small and medium-sized businesses identify workplace hazards, improve safety and health programs, and comply with OSHA standards — separate from enforcement, and with no citations or penalties for issues found during the visit.

What Is OSHA's Mission?

OSHA was established in 1970 with the passing of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. OSHA's mission statement is to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education, and assistance to employers and employees to meet those standards.

That mission grew out of congressional findings that personal injuries and illnesses arising from work situations impose a substantial burden on interstate commerce — through lost production, wage loss, medical expenses, and disability payments.

What Does OSHA Do?

OSHA establishes and enforces standards for workplace safety that are specific to the four sectors it oversees. It also requires employers to keep records of work-related injuries and illnesses so they can analyze these records for trends and identify hazards that may need to be addressed both within a business and across the industry.

OSHA standards include rules to protect workers against falls, cave-ins, exposure to infectious diseases and harmful substances, machinery accidents, and hazards from confined spaces. Standards also cover safety equipment, such as respirators, and the training required for certain hazardous jobs.

OSHA's enforcement division is responsible for ensuring employers follow workplace safety and health standards as well as conducting workplace inspections. When compliance officers identify a hazard, they can issue a citation requiring the employer to fix it by a set deadline. Because each violation is cited separately, a single inspection that uncovers several issues can result in multiple citations at once. That's why staying ahead of hazards is far less costly than addressing them after an inspection.

Why Is OSHA Important?

OSHA exists because workplace safety can't be taken for granted. Every business has hazards, from insurance offices to medical facilities to factory floors. OSHA has had a remarkable effect on workplace safety.

According to the latest publicly available data from the U.S. Department of Labor, since OSHA’s inception:

• Worker deaths in America have declined, on average, from about 38 worker deaths a day in 1970 to 15 a day in 2023.
• Reported workplace injury and illness rates have gone from 10.9 cases per 100 workers in 1972 to 2.4 cases per 100 workers in 2023.

Benefits of OSHA for Employers

Giving employees a work environment free of hazards has a ripple effect across a business that helps it grow, thrive, and operate more effectively over the long term.

Some of the benefits of OSHA for employers include:

Who Does OSHA Apply To?

OSHA's regulations apply to most private-sector employers. If you have employees, it’s very likely that at least one OSHA standard applies to your business. For example, even a low-risk office has to ensure employees know how to get out of the building safely in an emergency. Since no employer is exempt from thinking about safety, the real question isn't whether OSHA applies to you, but which standards do.

The answer comes down to your industry, workplace hazards, and in some cases the size of your workforce. Take a manufacturing company as an example. Accident investigation and emergency action plans and other OSHA required written programs are the basics. Once you have more than 10 employees on your payroll, you're likely subject to OSHA record-keeping requirements as well. From there, business compliance builds with the hazards present in your operations:

• Training applicable to the specific hazards or required compliance training the likes of forklift operator certification, PPE and chemical use just to name a few.
• Electrical precautions and hazard communication for chemicals, flammable liquids, compressed gases, hazardous wastes, or lead, so workers know what they’re handling and how to do it safely.
• Personal protective equipment, such as gloves, masks, hearing protection, and respiratory protection, matched to the specific risks of each job.
• Eyewash stations wherever employees could be exposed to chemicals or other substances that could injure the eyes.
• Fall protection is required whenever workers are exposed to fall hazards at or above specific heights, depending on the industry and work activity. Common OSHA thresholds are:
  • General Industry: 4 feet
  • Construction: 6 feet
  • Shipyards: 5 feet
  • Longshoring: 8 feet
  • Fall protection is also required around dangerous equipment or machinery, regardless of height in some cases, and at holes, unprotected sides and edges, roofs, scaffolds, and similar elevated work areas.

If you operate in a state with its own OSHA-approved plan, check those rules early in your planning. State requirements can be more stringent than the federal baseline, and missing that distinction is an easy way to fall out of compliance without realizing it.

OSHA Compliance: What Employers Need to Know

OSHA compliance touches nearly every part of how you run your business — from how you train new employees to what you document after an incident. For most employers, staying compliant commonly centers on four key areas: training, recordkeeping, inspections, and reporting. Understanding what each requires helps you build a compliance program that holds up — whether you're preparing for a routine audit or responding to an unexpected inspection.

OSHA Standards and Responsibilities

In brief, employer responsibilities under OSHA generally include:

• Following all the agency's relevant safety and health standards.
• Finding and correcting safety and health hazards.
• Informing employees about chemical hazards through training, labels, alarms, color-coded labeling systems, Safety Data sheets, and other methods.
• Notifying OSHA within eight hours of a workplace fatality or within 24 hours of any work-related inpatient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye (1-800-321-OSHA [6742], www.osha.gov/report.html).
• Providing required personal protective equipment at no cost to workers.
• Keeping accurate records of work-related injuries and illnesses.
• Posting OSHA citations, injury and illness summary data, and the OSHA "Job Safety and Health: It's the Law" poster where all staff will see it.
• Not retaliating against any worker for using their rights under the law.

Some roles also call for formal safety training, and OSHA’s voluntary Outreach Training Program is a common training option. The program offers 10-hour and 30-hour courses, commonly known as OSHA 10 for entry‑level workers and OSHA 30 for supervisors and others with safety responsibilities. Workers don’t become ‘OSHA certified,’ but they can earn a completion card, which is why people often refer to this training as OSHA certification. Both OSHA 10 certification and OSHA 30 certification are widely available, including convenient OSHA 10 certification online options.

OSHA Documentation Requirements

For most employers with more than 10 employees, OSHA recordkeeping requirements apply. These records are referred to as Injury & Illness Recordkeeping Forms — 300, 300A, and 301 — or OSHA Logs. The data from these forms is compiled and made available by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There is an important exception: employers in certain low-hazard industries are partially exempt from routinely keeping OSHA logs, even if they have more than 10 employees. In general, OSHA logs are maintained by private-sector employers with more than 10 employees, unless their industry appears on OSHA's partially exempt low-hazard list.

Employers who are exempt from routinely keeping logs may still have to report a work-related fatality, an in-patient hospitalization, an amputation, or a loss of an eye.

Beyond the logs, a few core documents are worth knowing:

• Certificate of Hazard Assessment: If employees are required to wear personal protective equipment, employers must perform a hazard assessment and document that it was completed, including which PPE is required for identified hazards.
• Safety Data Sheets: If chemicals are used at your worksite, you must obtain a Safety Data Sheet for each one and keep them accessible to employees at all times during every shift — typically in a binder available on-site or electronic system.
• Written Emergency Action Plan: When OSHA requires an emergency action plan, employers with more than 10 employees must maintain it in writing. Smaller employers can communicate the plan verbally, but they are still required to have one in place.

OSHA Inspections

OSHA conducts most workplace inspections without advance notice. In some cases, lower-priority complaints may be handled via phone or fax investigation instead of an on-site inspection. Trained compliance officers conduct inspections and prioritize their efforts according to:

• Imminent danger
• Catastrophes or fatalities
• Worker complaints and referrals
• Targeted inspections focused on high-hazard industries, injury/illness rates and/or severe violators
• Follow-up inspections

OSHA generally takes a guidance-first approach, escalating enforcement only when necessary. The agency offers small businesses free, confidential consultations to help employers identify and correct job hazards and improve workplace safety and health programs. Visit the OSHA consultation website or call 1-800-321-OSHA [6742] to locate the nearest consultation office.

OSHA Employee Rights

OSHA exists to protect workers’ health and safety and to hold employers accountable for meeting their obligations. In practical terms, that protection is specific: machinery has to include safeguards that keep workers from losing a finger or other serious injuries, and any employer using hazardous chemicals must make information about those hazards available and tell employees how to access it.

OSHA makes clear that employees have the right to:

• Work in conditions that do not pose a risk of serious harm.
• Receive information and training in a language they can understand about chemical and other hazards, ways to prevent harm, and the OSHA standards that apply to their workplace.
• Review records of work-related injuries and illnesses.
• Get copies of test results to find and measure workplace hazards.
• Ask OSHA to inspect their workplace if they believe a serious hazard exists or the employer isn’t following OSHA rules.
• Use their legal rights without retaliation.

Note that OSHA's oversight generally doesn’t extend to self-employed workers, government workers (except in state-plan states), or to workplace hazards regulated by other federal agencies.

Ultimately, OSHA’s goal is to help ensure workers return home at the end of the workday by preventing workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.

What Are the Types of OSHA Violations?

OSHA requires employers to keep accurate and detailed documentation on workplace safety protocols along with records of work-related illnesses and injuries. The agency uses those records, along with inspection and enforcement data, to identify workplace hazard and compliance trends across industries. This data also reveals which standards employers struggle with most.

For 2025, OSHA’s most frequently cited standards were:

1. Fall protection, construction
2. Hazard communication, general industry
3. Ladders, construction
4. Control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), general industry
5. Respiratory protection, general industry
6. Scaffolding, construction
7. Fall protection training, construction
8. Powered industrial trucks, general industry
9. Eye and face protection, construction
10. Machine guarding, general industry