Health and Safety: 5 Reasons an Online OSHA Training Course is Important

The OSHA, or Occupational Health and Safety Act, was established in 1970 to provide workers with the right to request a safe and healthy working environment, and for guidelines for businesses to follow to provide that environment. The act provides research, training, education, and information in the field of occupational health and safety.

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Why you should invest in OSHA training

If you are working in a field that poses occupational safety hazards, it’s doubly important that you have a solid understanding of workplace health and safety standards and how to keep yourself and your co-workers safe. If you own a business where your employees are at a higher risk of injury or illness due to the nature of their work, it’s essential that you provide safety training and emphasize it’s importance to your employees.

OSHA training provides employees with awareness and guidelines to perform their jobs in the safest possible manner. If you provide a new employee with proper OSHA training and continue to build on this training in the years to come, you will see it pay back tenfold in lowered rates of accidents, boosted morale, and employees with a strong interest in their own health and safety, as well as that of the company.

Safety training will not only protect your company, it will also protect your bottom line. Corporate financial loss from the injury and death of employees on-site can be catastrophic. Fines and legal action can sink a company into tens of thousands and even millions of dollars of debt. In the end, opting to save money in the short term by not offering safety training will surely backfire.

The benefits of online safety training

While in person safety training is incredibly important and beneficial, there are many aspects of safety training that can be achieved remotely. Online training provides the same knowledge and rigor as in person training, but can be much more accessible to employees.

While employees want to be safe at work, it can be hard to ask an employee to seek training outside of working hours when they are not being paid. Personal responsibilities, second jobs, and friends and family can all make this difficult. However, offering your employees to take the OSHA outreach online training course from the comfort of their own home can be much more user-friendly.

This 30-hour online course is offered in two different formats for construction workers, or for general industry and can help your employees gain a better understanding of the dangers of their working environment, and how to mitigate those risks.

Industries that benefit the most from safety training

While it can be said that virtually any industry can benefit from safety training—including office workers—there are a few industries in which safety training must be viewed as mandatory. This is because these environments have more inherent risk than other workplaces.

These industries include (but are not limited to):

• Construction companies or warehouses that operate lifts and heavy machinery
• Healthcare organizations that must handle hazardous materials or biological waste
• Manufacturing companies that use heavy machinery or use welding equipment
• Businesses that work within the HAZMAT industry
• Transportation companies

Guest Author : 

Mark Filmore graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in journalism. During his time in New York, he supplemented his income as a lowly laborer on construction sites.

After graduating, Mark moved into labor reporting (since he liked laboring so much), and has continued to write on wages, overtime regulation, job safety and workforce policy changes ever since.