Summary: Failing a workplace safety inspection can be costly, but it often highlights simple improvements that can prevent accidents, fines, and compliance issues. Using tools like Certainty Software helps businesses address common inspection failures, streamline documentation, and maintain a safer, more compliant workplace.
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Passing workplace safety inspections is a key indicator of whether your business is providing a safe work environment, but doing so is not as easy as you might think. Even businesses that do their best to do everything right can overlook seemingly minor details, and feeling blindsided by failing an inspection that you were sure would be a breeze is not uncommon.
Fortunately, failing a workplace safety inspection often simply indicates that your business can take relatively easy steps to improve in one or more areas. Proactive management and the right tools can help you make adjustments that eliminate identified issues, which can:
- Ensure that your workplace meets increasingly rigorous safety standards
- Avoid fines, insurance claims, and other financial ramifications of ongoing safety hazards
- Improve compliance through consistent data collection
- Avoid accidents, injuries, illnesses, and other preventable problems
Certainty Software helps businesses pass inspections and take their workplace safety to the next level by providing a wide range of data, keeping everyone aware of compliance regulations, and storing documentation in one convenient place. Choosing Certainty can also help businesses quickly solve five of the most common problems that lead to failed workplace safety inspections.
Common Safety Inspection Failures and How to Fix Them
The specific type of safety concerns your employees may be most likely to experience can vary from industry to industry, but there are also several common issues that can cause any type of business to fail a safety inspection. Here are some of the most common reasons businesses fail workplace safety inspections, as well as helpful tips for quickly and completely fixing them before your next follow-up inspection.
Fire and Emergency Preparedness Gaps
Any business that prioritizes its employees’ safety has detailed emergency plans in place long before they are needed. You will be expected to explain these procedures during nearly any safety inspection, as well as demonstrate that any relevant equipment is present and working properly. Missing or inadequate plans, expired fire extinguishers, and blocked emergency exits are common issues that cause businesses to fail this portion of safety inspections.
How to Fix: Use digital checklists to schedule regular inspections and set up automated reminders.
Electrical and Equipment Hazards
Electrical issues are a common cause of fires and injuries. Exposed wiring will likely cause your business to fail a safety inspection, especially if it is visibly damaged. Not being able to prove that equipment has been tested properly or is maintained regularly will likely also concern your inspector.
How to Fix: Use automated workflows to keep track of maintenance schedules.
Inadequate PPE and Training
If your business is part of an industry with unavoidable risks, all team members must have access to and know how to use adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). Not having PPE present, multiple employees that are unable to demonstrate or explain how to use it properly, or equipment that is in disrepair or otherwise not functioning properly will likely cause workplaces with known hazards to fail safety inspections.
How to Fix: Use inspection forms to make sure that your business follows PPE guidelines and all team members are using this equipment properly.
Slip, Trip, and Fall Risks
Making sure that your team members can get around your workplace easily is one of the most basic, yet most important, steps in creating a safe work environment. Cluttered work areas, uneven surfaces, poor lighting, snow and ice, spills or water puddles, and other interior or exterior problems are very common causes of failed inspections.
How to Fix: Use standardized checklists to continuously monitor your workplace for hazards and prioritize cleaning or fixing them as soon as a team member reports them.
Poor Record Keeping and Documentation
Not every safety concern is a physical problem. Businesses that do not have an adequate system for staying organized may also run into issues with missing inspection records, no verification that proper corrective actions were taken, and other key information. Poor documentation does not necessarily present the same immediate dangers as other reasons your business might fail a workplace safety inspection, but it can indicate irresponsibility and a lack of understanding of the steps you need to be taking to provide the safest possible work environment.
How to Fix: Use a single comprehensive platform like Certainty Software to keep all inspection-related data in one place.
How to Prevent Safety Inspection Failures
Identifying safety issues as soon as they arise helps your business fix them before they become more serious and gives you more time to get them under control before a safety inspector finds them. This means that it is important to look for safety hazards on your own regularly instead of waiting until right before a scheduled inspection. Real-time reporting can be a helpful tool for improving your efforts in this area, and leveraging analytics dashboards can help you predict potential future issues by studying how trends change over time.
Your business should also prioritize creating a safety-first culture that keeps employees aware of potential safety issues and encourages them to report them as soon as they notice them. With more eyes on every part of your workplace, your team can significantly decrease the amount of time that passes between a problem first arising and someone in charge knowing that it needs to be fixed.
Turning Failures into Opportunities for Improvement
Most workplace safety inspection failures do not indicate clear negligence or other malicious decisions. Instead, they are often simply the result of keeping track of so many procedures that something gets overlooked. Your team members may not be communicating as well as they could, you may not have been aware of a specific compliance regulation within your industry, or your training programs may not have been as thorough as you thought. In most of these cases, making a simple change is all it takes to turn failing into passing.
Even when your business does pass a safety inspection on its first try, your leaders should always be striving to improve. Certainty Software’s dashboards and CAPA tracking tools provide businesses with a wide range of insights to help even the safest workplaces identify ways to perform at a higher level.
How Certainty Software Can Help
A quality safety inspection software program like Certainty can be a valuable tool for paying closer attention to real-time safety performance, documenting improvements, and understanding trends over time. We simplify the process of turning data into actionable steps that improve your business’s compliance, operational performance, and overall safety. Some of the many ways in which we can help businesses meet rigorous safety standards include:
- Real-time analytics and reporting
- Ongoing CAPA training
- Full mobile access to simplify accurate reporting at any site
- Highly customizable digital checklists and templates to align with the needs of a wide range of types of businesses
Our proactive systems and digital tools can help businesses avoid emergency procedure gaps, fire hazards, documentation problems, and many other common reasons for failing safety inspections. Take control of the outcome of your safety inspections today by scheduling a free Certainty Software demo.
FAQ
What are the most common reasons businesses fail workplace safety inspections?
Businesses often fail inspections due to fire and emergency preparedness gaps, electrical or equipment hazards, inadequate PPE or training, slip and fall risks, and poor record keeping or documentation.
How can I prevent my business from failing a safety inspection?
Regularly identifying and addressing hazards, maintaining up-to-date records, fostering a safety-first culture, and using digital checklists and reporting tools can help prevent failures.
How can workplace safety software help pass inspections?
Software like Certainty provides real-time reporting, customizable checklists, documentation management, and analytics to track compliance, identify risks, and ensure corrective actions are taken.
Does failing a safety inspection mean my business is unsafe?
Not necessarily. Most failures highlight minor oversights or gaps in processes rather than major negligence and addressing them can improve overall workplace safety.
What steps should I take if my business fails a safety inspection?
Identify the specific issues, implement corrective actions using tools like automated workflows and digital checklists, train staff as needed, and schedule follow-up inspections to ensure compliance.
