Thank you, Charles.
I try to search through topics to be sure I don't duplicate but it looks like I missed this one. I will peruse it once I'm out of my meeting. I think that I'm just going to try to sneak the training in together and see how it works. ;-) Worst-case scenario, it'll be the first battle I pick since I feel strongly that all employees should have formal occupational health and safety training, including the company's policy on how to handle emergency situations, where the first aid kit(s) is/are, etc. Even if they're part of new employee orientation, I still think they should just be included in annual training as a CYA to protect the company.
Thanks again!
~Emily~
Emily, I assure you, OSHA requires that any employer with more than 10 employees has to properly train them in Occupational Health & Safety. What is trained will depend on your site. At the minimum, there are requirements for emergency preparedness, hazard communication and use of PPE. But as far as OSHA is concerned, any risk that is at your site requires that you train your workers how to work safely around it.
Even where there are no specific standards for training, there's always the General Duty Clause, which requires employees to have a safe and healthful workplace.
The reason why it's not put into the food safety standards is because it's covered under government regulations. For the US, the OSHA standards are to be found at 29 CFR 1910. The OSHA web site is awesome.
The rule of thumb is that if you have a safety plan for something, you need to train workers. And the prudent course of action is to have refresher training every year.
A list of what you should be looking to consider in any workplace:
1. Fall protection (if anyone goes over 4 feet from the ground where there are no railings)
2. Lockout/Tagout
3. Hearing Conservation ( if you have noise over 85 decibels)
4. Hazard Communication (for chemical hazards, and most sanitizing chemicals would be considered hazardous chemicals)
5. Emergency Action (required from all employers)
6. Fire Prevention
7. Confined Space (if you have confined spaces that workers need to enter)
8. Bloodborne Pathogen (if you have a first aid crew, which is required if you are more than 4 minutes from an ER and there is the potential for injury on the job)
If you are in a state with a state plan, they may have imposed more strict regulations than OSHA has (it's allowed, so you better check out your state), which means that just looking at the OSHA site is not enough.
If you want more help, feel free to contact me, I've been handling occupational health & safety for many years.
Martha