At one point or another, you will most likely have someone who has an incident at your facility where you may question whether or not to record it. Sure, you know that if an employee drops a tool on their foot and breaks it that it is something you have to record and report.
However there are situations that are complicated and it can be hard to know what to do. OSHA has guidelines but here are a few helpful tips on when there is an incident at work that you are not sure of.
It is important that the injury or incident happened either due to the work environment or at work. For instance, an employee is at the facility but is there after their shift when they trip and fall. Or the employee is at the work location but not working and simply using tools for their own personal use – for instance, an employee is using the printer or borrowing a tool to use.
What this means is that by working at the facility, the incident was actually related to work done there. For instance, an employee has injured their ankle over the weekend while at a jogging park then comes to work after it was thought to be healed. If a re-injury occurs, this one is more tricky but some symptoms do not apply such as an employee who gets sick with food poisoning due to food ate at home before the shift. As far as the ankle injury, this injury happened prior to being at work and may not fall under guidelines for Workman's Compensation.
There are so many variables when it comes to injuries on the job, but when in doubt, record and follow up. It is better to be safe than sorry and while you can pretty much bet that someone having food poisoning because they ate something while not at work is not an issue for you to worry about, noting this problem is important even if you don't file any paperwork.
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These guidelines and more, can be found on the OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) website. Some of the information is very detailed but when in doubt, you can always call them to be sure.