Would you Pass a Surprise Safety Inspection?
Here’s What you Need to Know
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of Small Business Safety Pro.
It’s the worst nightmare for many small business owners and managers – a Ministry of Labour Inspector shows up at your door unannounced and wants to do a surprise inspection.
What do you do? Can you refuse? What will they be looking for? What are the consequences if they find something missing?
Key Points at a Glance
Ministry of Labour inspectors conducted over 65,000 field visits in fiscal 2024.
These visits can occur as a random spot check, in response to employee complaints or to investigate a critical injury.
Inspectors generally look for required postings, evidence of JHSC meetings, emergency equipment, training records, policies and procedures and compliance with the Act.
If you’re not compliant you can face written orders, stop work orders fines or even prosecution.
The best way to prepare is to know the requirements, keep accurate documentation and designate an employee as responsible for Health and Safety in the workplace.
Fortunately, most Ministry of Labour inspections do not end with the business being shut down or massive fines being levied. However, you do need to have the basics covered and show that even if things are perfect, you are at least making an effort to meet regulatory standards and keep your workers safe.
Let’s look at these inspections in a little more depth:
Why Inspections Happen
In 2023-24 fiscal year, Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development carried out 65,874 field visits to over 30,000 workplaces. They issued over 8200 orders to businesses across Ontario.
This breakdown works out to about 5,500 inspections per month, which is quite a significant level of enforcement.
These inspections are triggered for a number of reasons:
· Random spot checks – Inspectors conduct random spot checks at various businesses as part of their general surveillance.
· Complaints from employees – If the Ministry receives complaint calls from one or more of your employees, they may send an inspector out to investigate and see if the complaint has merit.
· Serious incidents or injuries – If a critical injury occurs at your workplace, the Ministry will send an inspector to investigate the circumstances of the incident, establish whether the employer is at fault and may require corrective actions to be put in place.
· High Risk Industries – Businesses in high risk industries such as construction, mining or manufacturing typical face more frequent inspection due to the danger involved in those industries.
· Blitzes – The Ministry conducts regular blitzes of certain industries or specific hazards, such as material handling or industrial hygiene.
What Inspectors Look For
Inspectors may look for different things depending on the purpose of the visit. If the visit is to investigate a critical injury, they will focus on the cause of the incident and what corrective measures, if any, were taken to prevent it. Inspectors will want to speak with the person responsible for safety at your site and a worker representative.
For a regular spot check, inspectors will look for the following:
· A current copy of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
· A copy of your Health and Safety Policy, signed by the Senior Manager or owner of your business, dated within the past calendar year.
· Your Joint Health Safety Committee. The inspector will typically ask for copies of the minutes of your last 3 meetings and your 3 most recent workplace inspections.
· JHSC minutes and a list of members are posted in the workplace.
· The list of certified first aiders posted in the workplace.
· Your violence and harassment policy and program must be posted.
· The WSIB “Prevention Starts Here” poster and Employment Standards poster must either be posted or readily available to employees online.
· Emergency equipment such as fire extinguishers, eyewash stations, spill kits, first aid kits etc. must be readily available, with signage and in good working condition.
· Depending on the inspector and the purpose of the visit, they may also ask for training records, hazard assessments or injury reporting and investigation records.
The inspector may want to interview employees as part of their visit, so make sure your employees are prepared and know what they need to know.
What Happens if You’re Not Compliant?
Regardless of the outcome, the inspector will provide the manager and worker representative with written inspection notes. These notes will include all of the items discussed and reviewed during the inspection. The possible outcomes are:
· No non-compliances found – If the inspector finds that everything is in compliance, you’ll be provided with the inspection notes and everything that was discussed. No further action is required on your part.
· Minor non-compliance found – If one or more minor non-compliances are found, the most likely outcome is a written order requiring the employer to take steps to comply with the regulations. This could be as simple as posting the required information such as JHSC minutes or it could involve developing a new procedure such as a traffic management plan for your site or it could require that you purchase protective equipment or install machine guards etc. Typically you have 30 days to comply and reply to the inspector with evidence showing compliance.
· Stop work orders – In serious cases, the inspector may issue a stop work order that forces you to stop work either entirely or in the specific area of your business where the non-compliance was found. For example, you may have to stop all work involving a production machine until you install a proper guard to protect your employees.
· Fines or prosecution – For extremely serious cases, any workplace party could face prosecution if they violate the law, ignore orders or hinder an inspector;
o Corporations – can be fined up to $2 million per offence, with repeat offences carrying a minimum $500,000 fine.
o Directors and officers – can be fined up to $1.5 million or face 12 months in jail.
o Workers, supervisors, sole proprietors – can face up to a $500,000 fine or 12 months in jail. Provincial offence tickets can also be issued up to $295 or summons of up to $1000 for less serious contraventions.
How to be Inspection Ready
So how can you be sure you’re ready if an inspector shows up at your door Monday morning? Showing that you are on top of the basics and doing your best to comply with regulations goes a long way. Inspectors are generally reasonable if you show that you are making an effort.
· Have all your required postings covered.
· Make sure you’re having at least quarterly JHSC meetings and keeping track of the minutes and corrective actions.
· Keep a record of all your training. From an inspector’s viewpoint, if it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen.
· Keep a record of your safety incidents and corrective actions.
· Do regular walkthroughs of your business and address obvious hazards.
· Post workplace contacts (JHSC, managers, worker reps, first aiders) in a visible spot in the workplace.
· Assign one person the role of safety lead so they can stay up to date with the records and be prepared to answer the inspector’s questions.
Passing a Ministry of Labour inspection isn’t as difficult as it might seem. The requirements are posted on the Ministry’s website and the information is freely available. As a business owner or manager, it’s up to you to know the requirements and follow them. If you’d like help with this, you can download my free Ontario Workplace Posting Checklist or feel free to message me to answer any questions you may have.
The Small Business Safety Pro is published every Tuesday on LinkedIn and Substack. If you like this content, I also write thought leadership articles for Health and Safety professionals. Message me to learn more.
Cheers,
Dan.