What OSHA compliance actually means
OSHA compliance is not a status you're granted. There is no OSHA approval, no OSHA certificate, and no pre-clearance of your safety programs. Compliance is a condition you demonstrate — during an inspection, after an incident, or when a customer audits you — through written programs, training records, inspection documentation, and injury records that agree with each other.
That last part is where most contractors get caught. A program that says monthly inspections but produces two inspection forms a year is worse than no program at all, because it documents a commitment you didn't keep.
Written programs: what you need and what makes them fail
Which programs apply depends on your scope of work, not on a generic list. A mechanical contractor working at height with hot work and confined space entry carries a very different set than a facilities maintenance crew.
Programs commonly required of industrial and construction contractors include:
- Hazard communication and chemical inventory
- Lockout/tagout (control of hazardous energy)
- Fall protection
- Confined space entry
- Respiratory protection, including fit-test and medical-evaluation records
- Powered industrial trucks and mobile equipment
- Electrical safety and arc-flash practices
- Hot work and fire prevention
- Emergency action and incident reporting
Why reviewers and inspectors reject them
- Template language. The document never names your roles, equipment, chemicals, or frequencies. If it could belong to any company, it reads as belonging to none.
- No assigned responsibility. Someone has to own each program by title.
- Training that doesn't match. The program requires annual refreshers; the records show one session three years ago.
- Missing appendices. Permits, checklists, and inspection forms the program references but never includes.
Recordkeeping: the 300, 301, and 300A
Most employers with more than ten employees in non-exempt industries must maintain injury and illness records:
- OSHA 300 — the running log of recordable work-related injuries and illnesses.
- OSHA 301 — the individual incident report behind each 300 entry.
- OSHA 300A — the annual summary, certified by a company executive and posted in the workplace for the required period each year.
Two things go wrong constantly. First, recordability is misjudged — first aid treated as a recordable, or a restricted-duty case left off the log. Second, the 300A that gets posted and the numbers uploaded to a prequalification platform don't match, which reviewers do notice.
Retain records for the required multi-year period and keep them retrievable by year. Customers routinely ask for three to five years at once.
TRIR, DART, and EMR: how you're actually scored
Your customers rarely read your programs first. They screen your rates. All three come out of the records above, so accuracy in recordkeeping is what protects your numbers.
- TRIR = (recordable cases × 200,000) ÷ hours worked. The total-recordable rate.
- DART = (cases with days away, restricted duty, or transfer × 200,000) ÷ hours worked. A severity signal.
- EMR — issued by your workers' comp insurer or rating bureau, not by OSHA. Compares your claims history to expected losses for your class codes.
The most frequent error we correct isn't a bad safety record — it's bad arithmetic. Under-reported hours worked inflate every rate you report. Recheck hours against payroll before any figure goes into a customer portal.
How this feeds contractor prequalification
Everything above is what ISNetworld and Avetta reviewers are reading. RAVS reviews are program reviews. Statistics sections are your 300 logs turned into rates. Insurance and EMR sections are your carrier documentation. A weak OSHA foundation doesn't just create regulatory exposure — it directly blocks work.
If a platform is the reason you're here, start with What Is ISNetworld? or What Is Avetta?
Where PrecisionEHS fits
We are an independent, CSP-led EHS consultancy. We build written programs to your actual scope of work, correct recordkeeping and rate calculations, assemble training and inspection documentation, and keep it current so audits and platform reviews stop being fire drills.
We don't guarantee inspection or audit outcomes — nobody credible does. See OSHA compliance consulting, monthly platform management, or run the 60-second compliance scorecard.