OSHA compliance might seem like a well-worn checklist, but in practice, many facilities fall short. Whether they overlook contractor certifications or fail to document safety training, even small gaps can lead to major consequences.
With OSHA increasing both the frequency of inspections and the severity of penalties, the stakes are high: a single serious violation can cost over $15,000, while willful or repeat violations may climb above $156,000. In the past year alone, the manufacturing sector faced $71.5 million in OSHA penalties.
While manufacturing remains a high-risk sector, these compliance challenges apply across industries. In this post, we’ll walk through five common OSHA mistakes—how they happen, what’s at risk, and how to fix them.
1. Overlooking Contractor Certifications Before Site Entry
Many facilities rely on external contractors to get critical work done. However, over 75 percent of organizations still rely on manual methods to track contractor compliance (ISACA, Digital Transformation Barometer). That means most facilities are managing critical compliance records using spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls—systems prone to human error, delays, and security risks.
Picture this: a contractor is brought in to service a piece of machinery in a confined space. The job is routine, but the certification verifying their training on confined space entry protocols has expired. No one notices until after the work is done—when an OSHA inspector arrives and asks for documentation.
This type of oversight is more common than you’d think. A single expired certification, missed safety requirement, or overlooked insurance document can lead to serious consequences: regulatory fines, project delays, unauthorized site access, and liability risks. OSHA regulations require contractors to be properly trained and certified in procedures like lockout/tagout, hazardous material handling, and confined space entry.
Manual contractor compliance tracking isn’t just inefficient—it’s dangerous. Organizations are spending significant amounts of time tracking down missing paperwork while still failing to ensure all contractors and vendors meet the necessary requirements. Every day a facility operates with compliance gaps, the risk increases.
Solution: Pre-Entry Verification of Contractor Certifications
One of the most effective ways to prevent non-compliance is to ensure that every contractor entering your facility is fully certified for their work before they arrive on-site. Relying on manual checks or outdated systems make it easy to overlook expired or missing credentials. Implementing a contractor compliance solution to manage contractor and vendor compliance requirements and documentation, like FacilityOS's ContractorOS, helps maintain control and ensures only compliant contractors are allowed on-site. This reduces liability, improves visibility, and simplifies audit readiness for compliance teams.
2. Inadequate Safety Training—and Little to No Proof of It
Safety training isn’t a “one and done” activity—it’s an ongoing requirement. Yet many organizations struggle to track who has completed what, especially when onboarding contractors, temporary workers, or visitors.
Take this scenario: a new contractor arrives on-site for the first time. They’re unfamiliar with the facility’s PPE requirements or emergency procedures, and no one verifies whether they’ve been trained. A week later, they’re involved in an incident that could have been avoided with basic safety orientation. During the investigation, it becomes clear there’s no documented proof of any training.
This kind of gap leads to OSHA citations. According to OSHA standards, employees and third parties must be trained to recognize and avoid unsafe conditions relevant to their role. Training must also be documented and readily accessible during audits or inspections.
Solution: Integrated Safety Training & Documentation
Visitor and contractor training can be complex, but it doesn’t need to slow things down. With a digital visitor management system, facilities can make safety training part of the check-in process without adding manual steps. Training videos, safety documents, and acknowledgment forms can all be delivered digitally, and completed ahead of arrival.
Allowing visitors and contractors to complete training before they arrive helps reduce wait times at the front desk and ensures everyone is prepared before stepping into a high-risk area. It also improves consistency across sites by standardizing the training experience for every person coming through the door.
A digital process creates a reliable audit trail. Each completed step is logged, giving safety teams an accurate record of who has completed training, when it was done, and what was covered. This makes it easier to stay compliant and to respond quickly during audits or inspections.
3. Weak Emergency Preparedness and No Real Evacuation Plan
It’s one thing to have a documented evacuation plan written down. It’s another to make sure it works in practice. Many facilities have emergency plans on paper but don’t test them—or worse, no one knows what the plan is or how to communicate a course of action when it matters most.
75% of manufacturing facilities evaluate their emergency plans only once a year. This surprising statistic from an OH&S report highlights a critical flaw in emergency preparedness: plans that are static and rarely revisited fail to keep up with the realities of ever-evolving operations. When emergencies strike, outdated or untested protocols can lead to confusion, delays, and potentially devastating consequences for both people and operations.
Imagine a chemical spill occurs during a shift change. Alarms sound, but the evacuation plan hasn’t been updated in months. Visitors and contractors unfamiliar with the site are unsure where the muster points are, and the shift supervisor is left scrambling with a clipboard, trying to account for who’s on-site.
This is precisely the kind of scenario OSHA’s Emergency Action Plan (EAP) requirements are designed to prevent. Employers must maintain written procedures, conduct regular drills, and ensure all personnel—employees, contractors, and visitors—know what to do.
Solution: Digitized Emergency Preparedness and Evacuation Planning
An emergency response plan is only effective if accessible, up-to-date, and actionable. Facilities that rely on static documents or manual evacuation procedures often struggle to account for everyone during drills or real incidents. Digitizing emergency preparedness efforts—such as digitizing your evacuation and mustering process, logging drills, and real-time visibility with live updates—can dramatically improve compliance and safety outcomes. This approach aligns with OSHA’s Emergency Action Plan (EAP) requirements and helps teams respond more quickly and accurately in high-pressure situations, ensuring personnel accountability and reducing response time.
An emergency management system like EmergencyOS (integrated with a visitor management system like VisitorOS) helps close these gaps offering a centralized, proactive solutions with real-time visibility, automated drills, and seamless facility coordination.
4. Disorganized or Incomplete Recordkeeping
Facilities often underestimate how much documentation OSHA expects to see during inspections and audits. From visitor logs to evacuation data to visitor compliance training completion, missing records are one of the fastest ways to fail an inspection.
A facility can have a solid safety culture, but if incident investigations are documented across multiple spreadsheets and an OSHA inspection turns up inconsistent reporting dates, incomplete visitor and contractor logs, or missing audit reports, it can result in a citation - even if the issues were minor.
OSHA mandates clear and consistent recordkeeping around injuries, illnesses, training, inspections, and corrective actions. If those records are scattered, inaccurate, or lost, your organization is exposed.
Solution: Centralized Compliance Documentation
Maintaining accurate and complete records is a cornerstone of OSHA compliance. Yet, it’s common for safety and compliance teams to manage data across multiple systems (spreadsheets, emails, paper forms) which increases the likelihood of errors or missing documentation. Centralizing all compliance records, including emergency incident reports, visitor training logs, contractor documents, and audit trails, creates a single source of truth for your facility. This makes it easier to prepare for inspections and supports continuous improvement by allowing teams to identify patterns and track corrective actions more effectively.
A platform like FacilityOS centralizes data in a single, easy-to-use dashboard, giving you complete visibility across multiple sites while ensuring consistency and standardization throughout your operations. Each module captures digital logs, making it simple to generate reports and always stay audit-ready, helping to ensure compliance with manufacturing regulations.
Building a Stronger, Safer Compliance Strategy
Avoiding common OSHA compliance issues means having the right systems in place to manage them consistently. Whether it's verifying contractor certifications, confirming safety training, maintaining updated evacuation procedures, or keeping records organized and accessible, these responsibilities are easier to manage when supported by the right tools. FacilityOS brings all of these pieces together. With modules like ContractorOS, VisitorOS, and EmergencyOS, safety and compliance teams can streamline critical processes, reduce risk, and stay prepared—every day, not just during inspections.
Looking to strengthen your compliance approach?
Schedule a demo with FacilityOS to explore practical tools that support OSHA readiness across your facility.
