Bobby Lewis

Each year, OSHA Region VIII Recognizes a person or persons from a VPP site who exhibited exemplary leadership in employee safety and health during the previous year. Ryan was nominated by the employees of Hellman & Associates. Their nomination stated Ryan provides H&A staff with training, support, time, equipment, and encouragement to be safe on the job at all times. Hellman & Associates has been a longtime VPP participant and Ryan supports the staff’s participation in the OSHA VPP Special Government Employee program. In fact, at any given time 20-25% of the staff at Hellman & Associates are certified as SGEs. This is a tremendous level of support and commitment to the OSHA VPP.  In addition, Ryan has actively supported OSHA mentoring efforts, conferences and VPP outreach. He is a strong ambassador for employee safety and health in Region VIII.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration awarded the Voluntary Protection Program Star designation to Hellman & Associates for the 13th consecutive year. This award extends this prestigious designation for another three years. The VPP Star is OSHA’s highest level of recognition of employers and workers who employ effective safety and health management systems and keep injury and illness rates below the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ industry averages.

Hellman & Associates celebrated this prestigious designation on Friday, June 23, 2023 at their Wheat Ridge office. The Celebration was attended by OSHA Region VIII executives, H&A clients, city of Wheat Ridge officials and H&A staff.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has awarded the Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Star designation to Hellman & Associates Inc., an environmental safety and health compliance management firm. The VPP Star is OSHA’s highest level of recognition of employers and workers who have employed effective safety and health management systems and kept injury and illness rates below the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ industry averages.

OSHA recognized Hellman & Associates for having an effective pre-task plan, job hazard analysis and strong culture of safety and health excellence, management commitment and employee engagement. VPP programs bring company management, site employees and OSHA together to work proactively to focus on hazard prevention and control, worksite analysis, training, management commitment and worker involvement to prevent fatalities, injuries and illnesses. Prospective VPP participants apply to OSHA for consideration, and then undergo a rigorous onsite evaluation by a team of safety and health professionals.

“Hellman & Associates is a great example for a company seeking to develop and implement highly effective safety and health management systems. For 13 years, they have earned the Star designation and have generously helped other companies achieve VPP recognition,” explained Jennifer Rous, OSHA Region 8 Administrator. “As we renew their status for another three years, we applaud their commitment to setting high standards when it comes to keeping their employees and their clients’ employees safe at work.”

The OSHA Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) model is quite extensive. It is a tremendous challenge and a great achievement to be a VPP. Getting VPP status is difficult but staying in is even harder. VPP requires a long-term commitment to continuous improvement in the site safety and health management system. H&A is one of a very small number of safety and health management consulting companies in the country to achieve the OSHA VPP Star recognition.

Does OSHA reporting feel overwhelming? That’s Because It’s Only One of Many Tasks You Do.

Some companies prefer to handle their OSHA record keeping in-house. And we understand why one might think that is the best way to handle this requirement. But, too many times companies leave reporting to the last moment which may result in missing deadlines. Overall, managing OSHA reporting internally is risky and can lead to compliance exposure.

If OSHA knocked on your door tomorrow, would you be prepared?

Effective March 27, 2023, OSHA will administer penalties on an “instance-by-instance” (IBI) basis for gravely serious violations. Detailed information can be found in the official OSHA memo by clicking this link. The OSHA standards this new policy applies to include: falls, trenching, machine guarding, respiratory protection, permit-required confined space, lockout/tagout and other-than-serious violations of OSHA standards specific to recordkeeping.

The significance to this change means for each instance of a violation, a serious penalty can be proposed. OSHA is allowed to cite on a per machine, per location, per employee exposed, etc. so you can see how this can increase penalty amounts. Historically, OSHA groups each instance of the violation and issues one citation and penalty. Now, each instance is issued with a citation and penalty.

As an example, prior to this change if five employees were roofing a building and no fall protection was in place, one citation would be written with an average serious penalty of $5,500. With IBI changes, a citation for each employee can be issued thereby increasing the proposed penalty to $27,500!

When one combines this with the increase maximum penalties, if OSHA knocked on your door tomorrow, would you be prepared? The detailed maximum penalties OSHA memo released on December 20, 2022 is found by clicking on this link.

OSHA Form 300A, the Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses, must be completed and posted by February 1, 2023. The summary must include the total number of 2022 job-related injuries and illnesses that were logged on your OSHA 300 form. If your company had no recordable injuries or illnesses in 2022, you must still post the form with zeros on the total line. All summaries must be certified by a company executive and remain displayed in a common area between February 1 and April 30, 2023.

Employers with 10 or less employees in the previous calendar year are exempt from routinely keeping injury and illness records. Employers in certain industries may be exempt from federal OSHA injury and illness recordkeeping and posting requirements. Click here to see if your industry is exempt.

Leave the Reporting to Us

With Hellman & Associates’ annual ASSUREDCompliance^SM, we are aware of changing regulations, will keep your program and training current and manage compliance and reporting for you.

As an ASSUREDCompliance^SM partner, your regulatory compliance is guaranteed, meaning if you incur a citation for something we should have managed, we pay for it.