What OSHA Inspectors Actually Look For

Most employers picture an OSHA inspection as an inspector wandering the floor writing tickets. In practice it follows a predictable sequence, and the outcome is usually decided in the first hour — before anyone walks out to the production area. Understanding the sequence is the difference between a walkthrough that ends in an informal conference and one that ends in a serious citation.

1. The opening conference

The compliance safety and health officer (CSHO) presents credentials, states the reason for the visit — programmed inspection, complaint, referral, fatality/catastrophe, or follow-up — and describes the scope. This is where the inspection's boundaries are set. A complaint-driven inspection is supposed to be limited to the hazard alleged, but plain-view violations anywhere along the route are fair game.

• Ask what triggered the inspection and get the scope in writing where possible.
• Designate one company representative to accompany the CSHO for the entire walkthrough.
• Do not volunteer documents outside the scope. Do not refuse documents inside it.
• Start your own parallel documentation: notes, photos of the same conditions, names of everyone interviewed.

2. The document request

Before the walkthrough, the CSHO typically asks for a standard document set. How fast and how cleanly you produce it signals whether your program is real or on paper. Companies that spend two days hunting for records have already told the inspector what kind of program they run.

3. The walkthrough

The CSHO follows a route related to the inspection scope, but observes everything along the way. Certain conditions draw attention immediately because they are quick to document and hard to argue with.

• Unguarded machine points of operation and missing chain/belt guards
• Blocked or locked exit routes and obstructed electrical panels (the 36-inch clearance rule)
• Open or damaged electrical boxes, strain relief failures, daisy-chained extension cords used as permanent wiring
• Fall exposure over four feet in general industry, six feet in construction — unprotected edges, holes, improper ladder use
• Missing or unused PPE where the hazard is obvious
• Forklifts operated without seatbelts, or by operators with no evaluation on file
• Housekeeping: combustible dust accumulation, slip/trip hazards, cluttered egress

4. Employee interviews

Non-supervisory employees may be interviewed privately and without a company representative present. Supervisors are considered management and the company may have a representative present. What employees say about training, about whether they were told to report hazards, and about whether production pressure overrides stop-work authority is often the deciding evidence for whether a violation is classified as serious or willful.

You cannot coach answers, and attempting to is itself a serious problem. What you can do — long before an inspection — is make sure the honest answer is the good answer: that employees actually received the training the records claim, and that they know they can stop work.

5. The closing conference

The CSHO summarizes apparent violations, though citations are not final until issued — the area director makes the classification and penalty decision, and citations must be issued within six months of the violation. Use the closing conference to correct factual misunderstandings, note abatement already completed, and request copies of anything referenced.

What actually separates good outcomes from bad ones

1. The document set is complete, current, and produced within the hour — not the week.
2. Written programs are specific to this facility, this equipment, and these hazards.
3. Training records tie a named employee to a named topic on a specific date.
4. Abatement of anything found starts immediately and is documented while the inspector is still on site.
5. One person owns the interaction, and everyone else knows to route questions to that person.

None of those five things can be built during the inspection. They are the output of a program that has an owner — which is why the most common root cause of a bad inspection outcome is not a specific hazard, it's that no one internally was accountable for the program.