Safety Tidbit #25 – Formal vs. Non-formal Complaints

This week two of my three clients recently had interactions with OSHA due to employee complaints.  In Safety Tidbit #18, I gave a little introduction about OSHA inspections, why they chose your company and the basic process of an inspection.  Today I want to just focus on complaints.  As I mentioned in Safety Tidbit #18 when OSHA shows up at your door step because an employee complained they come in strong and none too nice.  You have to remember at this point their job is to protect the worker not your business. But I get ahead of myself.

Question: Does OSHA inspect after every employee complaint? No.  Back in the early days there were so many complaints that OSHA couldn’t possibly inspect every workplace.  Not to mention this is a very reactionary method of enforcement and OSHA really wants to prevent injuries from happening. So, they devised a procedure of prioritizing complaints.  OSHA defines two types of complaints non-formal and formal.  Formal Complaints get an inspection non-formal complaints start with (and hopefully end with) a phone call and either a fax or email with the actual allegations.  Obviously, if you are going to have a complaint the non-formal complaint is desirable.

When an employee calls into OSHA to place a complaint a series of questions must be asked.  First, is the employee a current employee and second is the alleged hazardous condition current or ongoing?  If either of these answers is “no” then the complaint should be placed into the non-formal category.  Conversely, if the answer is “yes” then the complaint may be placed into the formal category.  However, to move to formal category a couple of other items need to happen either the employee formally (thus the name – formal complaint) signs the complaint.  Remember, OSHA does not divulge the identity of the employee to the company however, sometimes either the complainant doesn’t care or the company is so small that deducing who the complainant is isn’t too difficult. 

The other way a complaint can become formal is if the nature of the allegations is egregious in nature (someone is going to fall off the roof) or in a special emphasis program that OSHA is researching (e.g., silica, amputations, etc.).  The final way a complaint could become formal is if the company is question seems to have a lot of activity around it for instance multiple non-formal complaints over a short period of time or if there was a non-formal complaint and the response given by the employer is challenged by the complainant.

Ultimately, if OSHA calls you with an allegation of a hazardous condition you need to take it seriously.  Do your investigation thoroughly and give OSHA a timely and complete response. You may want to give Onsite Consultation or your insurance company a call as they can help you evaluate the allegations and lend credibility to your response. 

Hope this helps and thanks for reading.