This session was presented on January 20, 2022.
Confused about which OSHA reporting and recordkeeping requirements apply to your organization? In this session, Monica Schwing from Mineral, our HR Partner, will review these requirements – who they apply to, what your company must do for compliance, and when to complete various responsibilities. She will also review the OSHA 300 forms in detail and cover OSHA’s new electronic submission of injury and illness records requirements.
Session Transcript:
MonicaSchwing:
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m really excited to welcome you to our training, OSHA Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements. I want to start by introducing myself. My name is Monica and I’ve held roles as an HR generalist and a payroll and benefits manager at a large ski resort, where I provided HR guidance to more than 500 employees each year, and I handled all of our OSHA recordkeeping and reporting responsibilities. I also have HR [00:00:30] experience in the healthcare field and the nonprofit world. Prior to pivoting to advising here at Mineral, where I now direct our team of HR experts.
All right. Before we jump into the content today, I do want to go through of brief housekeeping items. So, we are recording this session and you will receive an email of the recording and of the presentation within about 24 hours. I will hold a poll midway through our session, so I hope that you will participate in that. [00:01:00] And finally, please do feel free to use the Q&A box to send in any question. We’ve got some time at the end where I will try to get through as many as I can. I also do want to note, this is a 30 minute session, but I’m really passionate about OSHA. I love this topic and I feel like it’s really important to make sure that we get into some of the details, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I run just a bit over that 30 minutes. So I just want to give you a heads up, if you jump off, don’t fret, this is being recorded and we’ll email it out.
[00:01:30] All right. So, here’s our agenda for today. And like I said, we’re going to spend 30 minutes discussing OSHA requirements. Now for some, this topic is less than desirable, maybe it’s even avoided, but I’m going to provide you with information today to simplify it. So, we’ll with a brief overview of OSHA, then we’ll discuss OSHA reporting, which is required for all employers. Then we’re going to spend most of our time discussing OSHA recordkeeping, who’s covered by this requirement, what needs to be maintained [00:02:00] and we’ll look at the forms individually there. And then we’ll discuss OSHA’s electronic submission requirements, so that you’re familiar with them as well.
All right, now, one note, today, I’m going to focus on general OSHA information that I think is really important to those in HR. But I want to note that OSHA has many, many other requirements that I’m certainly not going to address today, including things like required workplace posters, workplace [00:02:30] injury reporting policies, industry specific safety requirements, and much more. So, these other reasons are a great reason to establish a good working relationship with your nearest OSHA office, their representative, and to collaborate with them and ensure that you’re compliant and providing the safest possible workplace for your employees. All right. So first, what in the world is OSHA? So, the Federal Occupational Safety [00:03:00] and Health Act of 1970 also called the OSH Act, is administered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That’s what I’m calling OSHA, right? The Act covers most private sector employers and their employees in all 50 states.
Now this Act assigns OSHA with two regulatory functions, setting standards and conducting inspections to ensure that employers are providing safe and helpful workplaces. [00:03:30] Now, in areas where OSHA has not provided a standard, like a specific standard addressing a hazard, then employers are responsible for are complying with the Act’s general duty clause. Now this general duty clause, in part, states that, “Each employer needs to furnish each employee with a place of employment that is free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or physical harm.” The Act also grants [00:04:00] in employees several important rights, but two of them I want to chat about here, the right to file a complaint with OSHA about safety and health conditions in their workplace and the right to participate in OSHA workplace inspections and employees who exercise these rights are also protected from employer retaliation under the Act.
Now, from an HR perspective, OSHA has two main requirements, reporting and routine recordkeeping. [00:04:30] And I’ve got an overview here, but like I mentioned, we’re going to dive into each of these in subsequent sections. So, in short, reporting, this requires that we pick up the phone and we contact OSHA directly after certain severe workplace injuries. This requirement here, this applies to all employers with one or more employee. And we’ll talk about when to contact OSHA, in a later section. Then separate from that, there’s OSHA’s routine recordkeeping [00:05:00] requirements, and this is required internal recordkeeping.
The only kind of caveat to that internal recordkeeping statement is OSHA’s kind of newer electronic submission rule that does require that some records are submitted to OSHA online, and I’ll discuss that at the end. So, as for recordkeeping here, employers with more than 10 employees are covered by the requirement, unless their specific industry is exempt as low risk. So, these terms [00:05:30] kind of get tossed around interchangeably and they’re really not, they’re distinct, hence why I like a visual chart for it. So an employer may be exempt from recordkeeping and I’ll discuss how they could be exempt, but an employer is never going to be exempt from these reporting requirements. And personally, I recommend designating someone within your company to take charge of OSHA reporting and recordkeeping to ensure compliance so that we’ve got one consistent person tasked with this.
[00:06:00] All right, now that OSH Act that I mentioned, it’s a federal regulation and OSHA is a federal agency. So an alternative to this is that an employer may be covered by an OSHA-Approved State Plan. And that’s the case for private employers in 22 states. So, the federal Act actually encourages states to develop and operate their own safety and health programs. And OSHA provides and monitors these state plans, which operate under the authority of state law. [00:06:30] So, states with OSHA-Approved Plans must set standards that are at least as effective as the federal standards, and they can go beyond those for federal standards. So, if you’re in a state with your own OSHA-Approved State Plan for reporting, you’ll want to contact your local agency as opposed to the federal agency. And for recordkeeping, a few states have specific requirements that it go beyond these federal requirements that I’m looking at today, and two states, California, and Oregon, they actually [00:07:00] have their own required OSHA recordkeeping forms.
All right. So, let’s dive a little bit deeper on OSHA reporting now. All right. So, first of all, who’s covered by this? And this one’s simple, as I mentioned, all employers under OSHA’s jurisdiction must report certain workplace injuries, and this is true even if an employer is exempt from these recordkeeping requirements we’ll talk about later. [00:07:30] So employers must report certain injuries of any employee. And when I talk about employees here, I’m talking about W-2 employees, and you’re going to report about any employee, whether that person’s classified as executive, hourly salary, part-time, seasonal, doesn’t matter. All right, on the slide here, I’ve got the list of what must be reported. So, we’ve got to report work-related fatalities to OSHA [00:08:00] within eight hours of finding out about the fatality. But this only includes fatalities occurring within 30 days of the work-related incident.
We’ve also got to report inpatient hospitalization, amputation, or eye loss, and we’ve got to report that to OSHA within 24 hours of learning about the event. And these incidents need only be reported if they occur within 24 hours of the work-related incident. Now, [00:08:30] one note here, OSHA defines inpatient hospitalization as formal admission to an inpatient service of a hospital or clinic to care or provide treatment, like medical treatment. So, that’s distinctly different than treatment in an emergency room, that’s not reportable. And you also don’t have to report inpatient hospitalization if it’s just for observation or diagnostic testing. So we’re really reporting formal admission to a hospital or clinic. [00:09:00] Now, if your state has its own OSHA plan, you do want to double check your local reporting requirements. As again, they could differ from this a little bit, but they’re not going to be any less than these requirements, it just could be an additional reporting requirement.
All right, now I’m not going to go through this slide in great detail, but I just want to be certain that you kind of have a list of items not to report. So these include incidents that resulted from a vehicle accident, except if that occurred [00:09:30] in a construction zone. Incidents that occurred on a commercial or public transportation system, as well as those that occurred outside of that reporting timeframe that we just reviewed. We don’t need to report those things to OSHA.
All right, now, I sincerely hope that you never have a workplace incident like those that we reviewed two slides ago, and therefore, that you never have to report these things to OSHA, but in the event [00:10:00] that you do, you have three options for reporting. You can call or visit the nearest OSHA area office. You can call the 24 hour OSHA hotline or your local office if your state has its own OSHA Plan, or you can submit an online report on OSHA’s website. So these links here are clickable and when we send out the PDF version of the slides, you’ll be able to click them and follow to the sites, if you’d like to explore a bit more. [00:10:30] Now, if you’re ever in a position to call in or visit the OSHA area office, be prepared to provide relevant information, including those involved in the incident, the type of the reportable event and a brief description of the incident.
All right, so now let’s switch gears to OSHA’s routine recordkeeping requirements. So, under OSHA’s recordkeeping regulation, certain covered employers are required to [00:11:00] prepare and maintain records of serious occupational injuries and illnesses. Now, this information is really important for employers, workers, and OSHA in evaluating the safety of a workplace, also in understanding industry hazards and in implementing future worker protections. All right. So before we dive in, I’m going to run a quick poll that is a little bit of a pop quiz. And for those of you that are already covered by this, [00:11:30] I think that you’ll get this one quite easily. All right. So let’s pull the poll up on the slide. So the question is, “Which form or forms must covered employers post at their work establishments each year?” All right. We’ve got the form 300. We’ve got the form 300A, the form 301 or, heck, let’s post all of those forms.
[00:12:00] All right. Give a couple seconds for this. All right. We’re creeping up on participation. I’m give this about 10 more seconds to send in your poll response. All right. They’re still streaming in. Thank you for your participation. [00:12:30] All right, let’s go ahead and end the poll, see how we did. So, the correct response here is the 300A and like I said, this was a little bit of a pop quiz because we’re going to go into detail on this. So I’m glad that we did edge out with 41% there, and we’ll talk about why we’re posting that one, emphasis on the word post. This is posting an invisible spot for our employees to see and why we’re not posting [00:13:00] those other ones. So, we’ll go through that in a couple minutes.
All right. So let’s go ahead and move on now. This slide contains an overview of those three forms, right? So there are three OSHA forms and these are required and I’m going to review each of them individually over the next few slides. But together, this combination of forms helps the employer and OSHA develop a picture of [00:13:30] the extent and the severity of work-related incidents. Now, in place of these specific OSHA forms, I want to note that you can use an equivalent form, that would be a form that has at least the same information, and you’re completing them using the same instructions as the OSHA forms that they replace.
So for example, many employers use a workers’ compensation insurance form, like your first report of injury, instead of that 301 listed there, the incident report, [00:14:00] or you can supplement an insurance form by adding information that’s required by OSHA. So I used to rely on my first report of injury instead of that 301, and just make sure that it captured any fields that were missing on my first report of injury. Now, please note, recording or reporting does not mean that the employer or employee was at fault. It doesn’t mean that an OSHA rule has been violated or that the employee is eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. [00:14:30] OSHA injury and illness requirements that we’re covering here and workers’ compensation are independent and separate of one another.
All right, now let’s talk about who in the world is covered by these OSHA recordkeeping requirements. So, employers with 10 or fewer employees at all times during the previous calendar year, do not need to keep OSHA injury and illness records, [00:15:00] unless you’ve been contacted directly by OSHA or the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the BLS, in writing. So, 10 or fewer employees at all times, during the previous calendar year, employees, again, emphasis on W-2 employees, we don’t need to keep these records unless you’ve been contacted directly. And I do want to note that this exemption for size, this is based on the number of employees in the entire company. All [00:15:30] of your employees, not a single physical location. We’re counting them in aggregate. So to determine if you are exempt based on size, you need to determine your company’s peak employment during the last calendar year.
If you had no more than 10 employees at any time, your company qualifies for this partial exemption, and you’re not required to maintain the records that I’m going to cover in this section. Now, employers with 11 or more employees must maintain these records [00:16:00] unless they’re exempt as a low risk industry. So if your business is an industry that’s classified as low hazard, then you do not need to keep records, again, unless OSHA or the BLS has asked you to do so directly in writing. So, the list of exempt industries is classified based on or using the North American Industry Classification System.
We call them the NAICS Codes. So you can find your NAICS Code [00:16:30] online, you could contact your nearest OSHA office. You could contact your workers’ compensation carrier because they typically use the same coding system to assign risk to an industry. So every industry has a NAICS Code associated with it. And then, we cross reference with the exemption list. And the list of exempt industries is quite long. It actually includes over 80 industries, but since 1982, industries designated as low hazard include certain [00:17:00] retail stores, eating and drinking establishments, most finance, insurance, and real estate industries, and certain service industries like personal and business services, medical and dental offices, legal, educational, and membership organizations.
Now, this partial exemption based on industry classification and risk, applies to each of your individual business establishments. So I talked [00:17:30] about the employee count being everybody all in. The exemption is based on your individual business establishment. So if you are a company that has several business establishments kind of engaged in different classes of business activities, you may very well have different NAICS Codes for them. And one might be covered by the recordkeeping, and one may be exempt as low risk. So we need to pay careful attention. And again, you’re going to always want to refer to any applicable state laws here as well.
[00:18:00] Now, before we look at the recordkeeping forms individually, let’s cover how to determine if an injury or illness is recordable. You’re probably getting the sense I’m a pretty visual person, so I like to kind of work through things sequentially. So once an employee has experienced an injury or illness, this flow chart here helps us to determine next steps in determining whether or not it’s recordable, is the event recordable in our logs? So, first, is the injury or [00:18:30] illness work-related? Yes? Continue. No? Don’t record it. And I will cover what in the world work-related means on the next slide. Next, is the injury or illness a new case? If yes, continue, if no, go update that previous record. And then lastly, is the injury or illness severe enough to meet the general recording criteria? If yes, record the injury or illness, if no, don’t record. And we’ll cover those general recording criteria in a couple slides.
[00:19:00] So, is the injury work-related? Injury or illness, sorry, I’m getting a little lazy there. You must consider an injury or illness to be work-related if an event or exposure in the work environment either caused or contributed to the resulting condition or significantly aggravated a pre-existing injury or illness. So work-relatedness is presumed [00:19:30] for injuries and illnesses that result from events or exposures occurring in the work environment unless an exception applies. So the burden is really on us as employers to prove that it wasn’t work-related. It’s assumed that it is if it happened in the work environment.
Now, there are a couple situations when an injury or illness occurring in the work environment is not work-related and therefore, is not recordable. So I want to go through a couple of them, but this is by no means a complete list. So, if the [00:20:00] employee was present in the work environment as a member of the general public, rather than as an employee, if the incident results solely from voluntary participation in activities, like a wellness program, perhaps the employee was on site donating blood or receiving a flu shot or something like that, or some sort of recreational activity, like an exercise class or a company sports team, something like that.
If the incident is solely the result of an employee doing personal tasks, unrelated to their employment [00:20:30] outside of their assigned working hours. So let me give you an example here. Say somebody chokes in the lunchroom during their break, they choke on their sandwich, but they’re in the employer’s establishment, but the case would not be work-related because it’s a result of eating, drinking, preparing food, things like that for personal consumption. And then lastly, there are injuries or illnesses that are intentionally self-inflicted need not be… Well, they’re not considered work-related.
[00:21:00] All right, here’s the biggie. Does that injury or illness meet the general recording criteria? So employers must record incidents that result in death, days away from work, missed work, restricted work activity, or a job transfer. Medical treatment beyond first aid, loss of consciousness, and then any significant [00:21:30] work-related injury, illness that’s diagnosed by a medical professional. So, that’s kind of that catch all that doesn’t fit in the above bullets. All right. So we need not record a number of incidents, including things like, again, visits to a medical professional solely for observation, diagnostic procedures, such as X-rays and blood tests. X-rays always caught me off guard, but that’s diagnostic not treatment. Using temporary and mobilization devices while transporting an accident victim, [00:22:00] like a splint, a sling, even a backboard. And there is a full list of what defines first aid. So we want to take care there to make sure that we’re only including medical treatment really, truly beyond first aid, because otherwise, we’re probably over recording on these records.
So, you might be wondering whether a COVID-19 case by one of your employees is recordable on these logs. So I want to spend just one slide on this. And for this, I want to reiterate, I’m speaking [00:22:30] about confirmed COVID-19 cases, not reactions to the vaccine, which OSHA has actually stated are not recordable. So vaccine reactions, not recordable, COVID-19 cases stemming from the workplace may be recordable. So, OSHA issued guidance for us in May of 2020 that states that COVID-19 is a recordable illness, and thus employers are responsible for recording cases if all of the following are true. [00:23:00] So, really it goes through that same flow chart. The only additional thing here is if it’s a confirmed case of COVID-19 as defined by the CDC, if it was work-related, we just reviewed that. And if the case involves one or more of those general recording criteria, death, missed work, job transfer, et cetera.
All right. So let’s look at the three forms individually now. So the federal forms come in a fillable PDF [00:23:30] complete with detailed instructions on OSHA’s site, and they also provide an Excel version of the forms if you prefer that. So, starting here with the form 301, this is the Injury and Illness Incident Report. This form should be the first one that you fill out. This is the one that I mentioned that I always interchanged with my first report of injury from the workers’ compensation carrier. This form, or [inaudible 00:23:54], must be completed within seven calendar days after you receive the information.
And again, you’re going to fill this one out or a similar [00:24:00] form that collects at least the same information. So I’m not going to go into details here. I think you’re going to find this form pretty self-explanatory, it’s really a collection of information about the employee involved in the incident, information about the healthcare they received, information about the case, like date, time, nature of the injury or illness, how it occurred, et cetera. So once we complete this, this form must be maintained in the employee’s injury or illness file, you’re going to want to keep this separate from [00:24:30] their personnel file. And my preference, I handled a lot of injury claims at the ski resort, is to make a file per incident.
All right, next, here is the form 300. The Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses. So this is a log that you’re going to complete every time you have a recordable case. So what we’ve cut off here is rows for you to add in Joe, Sarah, and so on and so forth throughout the calendar year. So you’re going to list [00:25:00] each recordable case here. And you’re going to note the extent and severity of each one. And simply stated, “When an incident occur, this log is used to record all those specific details.” So I want to note here, if you’re an employer with multiple establishments, you’re going to keep a separate OSHA 300 log for each physical establishment that you expect to be in operation for a year or longer.
Now, a word of caution here, you’re going to don’t want to be specific on this form. [00:25:30] So for example, for where the event occurred, don’t be too general, OSHA isn’t fond of that. So don’t just list the department name or state workplace, be as specific as you can. And the same goes for describing the injury or illness. Now towards the right side of the form, you see those columns to enter the days away from work, if any, and that’s the actual days when an employee wasn’t able to work and, or days when the employee was transferred or had restricted [00:26:00] duty. And with regard to restricted duty, you’re really going to want to think about when a medical provider recommends that the employee not perform one or more of the routine functions of their job or that medical provider recommends that they not work their full scheduled work day. This restricted duty is not something that we make the call on as the employer or that the employee gets to deem, it’s really about that recommendation from the medical provider.
Now I want to note [00:26:30] one other thing here, because this catches some people off guard, for recordkeeping purposes, an employee’s routine functions, are there work activities that they regularly perform at least once a week? So, let me give an example here. If I experienced an injury and I’m restricted from lifting anything over 50 pounds, but in my job, I only ever lift 20 pounds, I did not incur a job restriction. Now on the next slide, I will give you some tips for counting these days [00:27:00] too.
I want to note, so we are going to list the employee’s name here. There are a couple of narrow circumstances where we would not list their name due to privacy concerns and for a full list of that, and that’s all included in the instructions, when we would not include their name. Now, having said that, names are on this, which is why this one was not included on the things to post in the workplace. We’re not posting this and flaunting it to everybody who incurred an injury, because it does have names [00:27:30] on it, so it’s sensitive information. This is going to be maintained by the employer.
All right. As for counting days for column K and L on the log, these are days away from work or in that transfer to restricted job. I just want to give you a few tips. You’re going to begin counting the day after the incident. If the employee is out or restricted for an extended period of time, enter an estimate of the days that they’ll be away and then go back and update [00:28:00] your records once the number of days is known. And for this, you’re going to count calendar days, make this easier on yourself. We’re not excluding things like holidays or weekends or counting the employee’s schedule, it’s just simply calendar days and we’re going to cap the total at 180 days and that’s an aggregate between missed work and restricted duty.
All right. Here, we’ve got the 300A. We’ve been working towards this. This [00:28:30] is the biggie. This is the one that we’re posting in the workplace. This is the summary of work-related injuries and illnesses. And this form shows the recordable work-related injury and illness totals from the calendar year in each category. So we’re going to use that 300 log that we just looked at. We’re simply going to add up all of the individual entries that you made in each category and you’re going to put the totals here. If you didn’t have any recordable cases, you’re just going to write zero and post it, which is great news. And this form, [00:29:00] the reason it’s the biggie and you can see towards the bottom of the form in bold, this one has to be posted in a visible location from February 1st through April 30th, each year, so that your employees are aware of the injuries and illnesses occurring in their workplace.
After April 30th, you can certainly go ahead and take it down. You just have to maintain it for five years after the year that it pertains to. Now in the box on the right, we’re going to enter the calendar year that’s covered, the company’s information, annual average number of employees. [00:29:30] And then this information must be certified. That seems simple, but it isn’t. So I’m going to cover who can certify that on the next slide. I was wildly caught off guard with this.
So, a company executive must certify that they’ve examined the 300 log and that they believe that the annual summary that 300A is correct and complete. And I’ve included the list here of who can do that, OSHA has defined a company executive for us. And if your [00:30:00] job or your rank is not on this list, you can’t be the one certifying that 300A before it’s posted in the workplace. All right. And as a reminder, this needs to be posted in each establishment in a conspicuous place where all of your other notices to employees are [inaudible 00:30:18] posted. And I saw a question about this, it’s a great one. If you’re a fully remote employer due to COVID or not, posting this on a company internet is perfectly acceptable.
[00:30:30] All right. I know I’m already at the bottom of the hour and I’ve got one more section to go and then I’ve got some questions. So like I said, I get excited about this topic and obviously we’re going to run a little bit over. So, as a reminder, we’ve got to retain all of the records we just covered for five years following the calendar year that they pertain to. And then somewhat surprising to me, during that period, we do have to update our 300 logs. We’re going to update that [00:31:00] with newly discovered recordable incidents. We’re also going to update the description of the outcome of a case if it’s changed. So just a note there, you’re not required on the other hand to update your 300A or your 301, but you could certainly do so if you’d like. All right, let’s spend the last section here on electronic submission requirements.
These are newer, couple years old, but still feel new to me. So, OSHA states [00:31:30] that they’re taking action and taking information that employers are already required to collect, right? The information we just covered, and they’re using that data to increase worker safety. We’re really talking about making it visible for employers, employees, your potential employees, customers, even public health researchers, so that we can get ahead of workplace hazards for the future. And what they’re doing is they’re sanitizing the information and then releasing the data in a standard open [00:32:00] format. So there’s two big things we’re doing here. Well, we, being OSHA, we’re encouraging employers to increase their efforts to prevent worker injury and illnesses, right? We’re having to show this data. So, essentially, OSHA’s trying to nudge employers to increase workplace safety. And then it’s also intended to enable researchers, again, to examine the data and identify new workplace safety hazards before they become widespread.
All right. So let’s talk about [00:32:30] who is even covered by this. So, establishments with 250 or more employees that are currently required to keep OSHA injury and illness records must electronically submit their 300A summary online. So, that’s the same low risk industry list that we just looked at. If you’re covered by the record keeping section, and you have more than 250 employees, you’re submitting this online. If you have between 20 [00:33:00] and 249 employees, there’s a whole other list. So this gets a little crazy. I feel like we’re kind of jumping through hoops here. There’s another list of looking at high rates of injuries and illnesses. So, basically if you’re between 20 and 249, and you’re on this subsequent list, then you’ve got to submit your 300A. The only other thing I want to note [00:33:30] here is we’re submitting this online.
Oh, I think I’ve got this on the next slide. Let me go ahead. So, when and where are we doing this? So those that are covered me submit that 300A, they were already doing it. We’ve got that 300A, we need to submit it by March 2nd of each year. And OSHA has provided a secure website. It’s called the Injury Tracking Application, ITA, and there are a couple of different ways to submit your 300A online. You could do manual data [00:34:00] entry into a web form, you could do a CSV upload. You could do electronic transmission of the data if you’re using an automated recordkeeping system. So couple of options there, by March 2nd. All right. I know that I blew through that. Thank you for sticking with me. I’m going to take a moment to grab a sip of water and I’m going to look at questions that came in and see if I can get to several of them before we close it out. So I’ll be right back.
[00:34:30] All right. I’ve got a number of questions along this line. “We are a fill in the blank. Do I need to report?” So remember the first thing we need to look at is our company size. If you’re 10 or are fewer for the whole calendar year, you’re already out of it, no recordkeeping, [00:35:00] unless you’ve been contacted directly and you would know about that. The circumstances under which you’d be contacted directly, based on my knowledge, are if you had something pretty severe in the workplace in the past. If you’re 11 or more, we’ve really got to go find that NAICS Code. It would be remiss of me to do some sort of blanket, like yes and no, go find your NAICS Code, and then we’re going to cross reference that with OSHA’s list of industries and see whether we’re required to record or not.
” [00:35:30] How do I determine our NAICS Code?” So, again, there’s an online site where you can search your industry. For me, my go-to route in the past was to go to my workers’ compensation policy, they relied on the same code. Another option is I believe that this is on company tax forms. So go take a look there. All right. Let’s see. Oh, I’ve got a good question. “What happens if you over record?” I don’t have a great answer for that. I think it’s just one of those [00:36:00] things where if OSHA shows up for some sort of inspection and wants to see your records, it would just make me feel a little uncertain if I’ve put too many things on here, but I’m unsure of any immediate penalty or concern or something of that sort.
Let’s see here. Let me scroll through. Thanks for bearing with me. I’ve got [00:36:30] a question about if vaccination is required by the employer. So, COVID-19 vaccination and the employee experiences reaction. Under current state, OSHA has basically said those are not recordable incidents because their line of thinking is, “We want to encourage vaccinations.” So, under current state, no. And that’s the distinction between reactions to the vaccination, not recordable, [00:37:00] but if somebody gets COVID-19 from an exposure in the workplace, again, going through, was this work-related? Is this a diagnosed COVID-19 case from the CDC? And did it result in death, days away from work, restricted duty, et cetera? Then it would go on your log, just like any other injury or illness.
All right, let me see if I can get it to one or two more. Thanks for bearing with me. [00:37:30] Let’s see. “Does the 300A log have to be updated no matter the company size or just over 10 employees?” So remember, we’re not even keeping the 300 forms. Well, let me rephrase that. You’re not required to keep these records, the 301, 300, the 300A, unless you’re subject to the requirements. If you’re not, and you’re doing it just in case, perhaps as part of your effort for workplace safety, then you wouldn’t be subject to [00:38:00] these requirements. And whether you update them or not is really up to you.
Oh, here’s a good one. “How do we record days off if injury time off includes the year it happens and ends the following year?” Great question. So, we are going to record the incident on the log, in which calendar year it pertained to. So, if I was injured in December of last year, my incident would go on 2021’s 300 log [00:38:30] and on the 300A. But if I’m still out, I’m still out of work, obviously we’re in the new calendar year, you’re not re-recording because it was a single incident. You’re going to go back to the 2021 log and you’re going to update it with the number of days that Monica was out and any subsequent information. Great question. Thanks for posing that one. All right, let me see if I can sneak in one more and then we’ll close out. Thank you so much, again, for sticking with me.
[00:39:00] Let’s see here. I’ve got, “Can you explain the capping of the injury days to 180? So if the employee was out for injury-related for 80 days and then was back to work on a limited work for another 105, you just write 180.” That’s correct. Yep. We’re capping those. So I would do it in that order. I would do the first 80 days as out of work and then I would fill up, so you’ve got another 100 days of limited work and I’d stop at that. Now [00:39:30] for me, I would want to keep the full record somewhere. I would want to know, perhaps that would go on the 301, but for that 300 log, you’re capping it at 180 total. All right. Thank you. I know that there are some questions I didn’t get to. I really appreciate your participation and sticking with me. Again, we will send this presentation out within 24 hours, and I truly hope that you have a great rest of your day. Thanks again.
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