OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements involve two distinct obligations: recording injuries in the injury log and reporting specific types of severe injuries directly to OSHA. Together, the recording and reporting mandates are broadly referred to as OSHA recordkeeping. Employers who conflate these concepts or miss the stringent deadlines associated with them risk being issued otherwise easily avoidable citations and penalties.
OSHA Recording vs. OSHA Reporting: Two Separate Obligations
It is very easy for employers to conflate these obligations, as they look and sound similar and involve overlapping elements. Simply put:
Recording = entering injury information on the OSHA 300 log, completing an injury and illness incident report (OSHA 301 form), certifying the annual summary (OSHA 300A form), and posting the 300A at the worksite (and electronically submitting them to OSHA, for certain employers)
Reporting = directly notifying OSHA after specific types of serious injuries and illnesses
Why Is It Important to Record Correctly?
Both employers and OSHA stand to benefit from accurate recording of injuries and illnesses.
Employers should regularly mine their logs for quantitative, historical data on potentially unsafe aspects of the work and/or their worksites. Regularly reviewing the logs can reveal trends that employers can then address, for example:
- Is the employer seeing repeated injuries related to guarding? It might be time for a comprehensive review of the guards on all equipment.
- Are slips and falls happening more often at the beginning of the year? Winter weather conditions might be creating hazardous walking surfaces.
- Were there multiple forklift injuries in the past two to three years? Perhaps additional powered industrial truck training is in order.
Whereas individual employers are expected to use their own data at a micro level to identify their own internal trends, OSHA uses the combined data of thousands of employers at a macro level, statistically identifying high-hazard industries and thereby targeting their limited resources toward enforcement of those industries. This includes deciding whether to implement emphasis programs and identifying the industries that will be subject to those programs.
And of course, employers should maintain accurate logs to avoid citations and their attendant penalties. Recordkeeping citations are low-hanging fruit for an OSHA inspector, and they are avoidable by employers.
Who Is Required to Maintain OSHA Injury Logs?
Whether an employer is exempt from OSHA’s recording requirements (i.e., they are not required to keep injury and illness logs) is based on their size and industry.
If the employer (i.e., the entire company) had 10 or fewer employees during the entire previous calendar year, then it is exempt and need not keep injury and illness logs. 29 C.F.R. § 1904.1.
OSHA also exempts business establishments engaged in certain low-hazard industries from maintaining logs. OSHA lists those low-hazard industries, based on 2007 NAICS codes, here. Importantly, OSHA distinguishes an employer from an establishment. An establishment is a single physical location where the work is being done or the service is being provided. A single employer might have multiple worksites and therefore multiple establishments. Whether the industry-based exemption applies will thus depend on the work being performed at the particular establishment.
Note: in rare instances, OSHA or the Bureau of Labor Statistics might notify an employer that they are required to maintain logs, even though they are otherwise exempt.
What Is a Recordable Injury or Illness?
At its most basic, an injury or illness must be recorded if it is:
- Work related and
- is a type of injury for which recording is required.
An injury is work related if an event or exposure in the workplace caused or contributed to the injury or illness or it significantly aggravated a pre-existing condition. If it happens at the worksite or during an employee’s shift, then OSHA presumes it was work-related. There are a limited number of circumstances where the employer can overcome that presumption. See 29 C.F.R. § 1904.5(b)(2).
The broad categories of injuries or illnesses that must be listed in the log are those that resulted in:
- Death
- Days away from work, restricted work, or transfers
- Medical treatment other than first aid
- Loss of consciousness
- Other significant injury or illness diagnosed by a licensed health care professional (e.g., cancer; chronic, irreversible disease; bone fracture or crack; punctured ear drum)
See 29 C.F.R. § 1904.7. The agency also has special requirements for injuries associated with needlestick and sharps injuries, medical removal under medical surveillance requirements, occupational hearing loss, and work-related tuberculosis diagnoses. See 29 C.F.R. § 1904.8 through 1904.11.
Employers are often befuddled by the exclusion of first aid treatment: where to draw the line between first aid and more serious medical treatment? OSHA’s definition of medical treatment leaves much to be desired: “the management and care of a patient to combat disease or disorder.” 29 C.F.R. § 1904.7(b)(5). Medical treatment does not include observation or counseling by a medical professional, and it does not include the conduct of diagnostic procedures such as x-rays or blood tests or administration of prescription medications used for diagnostic purposes. Note that if the medical professional recommends medical treatment and the injured employee chooses to disregard that recommendation, the employer must still record the work-related injury.
Luckily, OSHA does provide an exhaustive list of what constitutes first aid:
- Using a non-prescription medication at non-prescription strength (though, if a licensed healthcare professional recommends that an employee use a non-prescription medication at prescription strength, then it is no longer first and instead is medical treatment that must be recorded.)
- Administering of tetanus immunizations
- Cleaning wounds on the skin surface
- Applying wound coverings (e.g., bandages, butterfly bandages)
- Using hot/cold therapy
- Using non-rigid devices for support (e.g., elastic bandages or wraps)
- Using temporary immobilization devices while transporting an accident victim (e.g., sling, neck collars, splints)
- Drilling a nail to relieve pressure or draining fluid from a blister
- Using eye patches
- Removing foreign objects from the eye with irrigation or a cotton swab
- Removing splinters or other objects from other parts of the body with irrigation, tweezers, cotton swabs or “other simple means”
- Using finger guards
- Massages
- Drinking fluids for relief from heat stress
Whether an injury must be recorded is sometimes very obvious. But often, there are a lot of circumstances that fall within a gray zone and require further analysis. That often includes circumstances involving: injuries incurred while an employee travels, recurring illnesses, worksites with multiple employers, or temporary employees. Employers should be aware that there is often a lot of nuance associated with determining if an injury or illness should be recorded. They should therefore should consider enlisting their OSHA counsel to assess whether injuries or illnesses should be recorded and to get advice on the best approaches to maintaining their records to avoid citations.
How Should Injuries and Illnesses Be Recorded?
Recording injuries and illnesses involves three different, but related, documents:
- Form 300 – the log
- Form 301 – the incident report
- Form 300A – the annual summary
Each establishment should maintain its own 300, 301, and 300A documents. Employers who operate multiple establishments, whose employees work at multiple establishments, and who work at sites hosted by another employer face special circumstances for how and where they should maintain logs.
The forms themselves are simple and self-explanatory, but there are some common ways that employers get it wrong:
- Too much shorthand. They use shorthand or internal designations/codes for job titles (Form 300, Column C). Employers should use a brief but descriptive job title that allows both OSHA and the employer to quickly identify trends in which types of employees are getting injured.
- Insufficient detail. Providing insufficient detail about where the injury occurred and the injury itself (Form 300, Columns E and F). While OSHA does not expect an employer to write a full paragraph, the information in Columns E and F should give a very clear and concise explanation of what was injured and where. So instead of “hand injury inside the plant,” consider “left thumb crushed at crimper station of packaging line #1.”
- Incorrect math. Employers sometimes incorrectly tally the totals at the end of each column in Form 300, or the totals listed in Form 300 are not identical to the totals listed in Form 300A.
- Failure to certify. Some employers maintain the logs correctly but then don’t complete the critical certification at the end of Form 300A.
- Failure to post. Form 300A must be posted no later than February 1 for the previous year, and it must remain posted until April 30. The document should be posted somewhere conspicuous or wherever other notices to employees are typically posted.
- Incorrect entity information. For companies with separate subsidiaries, affiliates, or otherwise separate corporate entities, it is important to identify the correct corporate entity on the logs.
- Untimely completion. Form 301 must be completed within 7 days of learning about a recordable injury.
- Failure to maintain records. The 300, 301, and 300A (with the certifications completed) must be kept for at least 5 years. Often, employers toss out the certified version of the summary after April 30 or when replacing it with the following year’s summary.
When Is an Employer Required to Submit Its Records Electronically?
OSHA requires certain employers to submit their recordkeeping data electronically through the agency’s Injury Tracking Application (ITA). The electronically submitted information allows OSHA to more easily access the data and analyze it. While certain aspects of the information submitted by employers is withheld (i.e., those that might infringe on employee privacy), much of it is visible to the public.
The establishment’s size dictates whether an employer needs to submit data to the ITA and which data must be submitted:
| If the Employer … | … Then It Must Submit This Information through ITA |
| Had 20-249 employees at the establishment in the previous calendar year AND Its NAICS code is listed on Appendix A to Subpart E of 29 C.F.R. Part 1904 | Form 300A |
| Had 250 or more employees at the establishment in the previous calendar year AND Its NAICS code is not on the list of exempt industries at Appendix A to Subpart B of 29 C.F.R. Part 1904. | Form 300A |
| Had 100 or more employees at the establishment in the previous calendar year AND Its NAICS code is listed on Appendix B to Subpart E of 29 C.F.R. Part 1904. | Form 300A Form 300 Form 301 |
The information must be submitted between January 1 and March 2 for the previous year’s information. See 29 C.F.R. § 1904.41.
Who Is Required to Report Injuries and Illnesses?
Unlike the rules associated with recording injuries on a log, OSHA requires all employers — regardless of their size or exemption —to report qualifying fatalities and injuries. 29 C.F.R. § 1904.39.
What Injuries and Events Must Be Reported to OSHA?
Employers must quickly inform OSHA about certain types of serious events:
- Fatality
- In-patient hospitalization of one or more employees
- Amputation
- Loss of an eye
Whether an injury or illness is reportable sounds simple in theory. But in practice, employers often bungle the analysis. As a result, they fail to report a reportable injury, which can result in an inspection and eventual citation, if OSHA learns about the injury by other means. Or employers report an otherwise non-reportable injury “just in case,” which can bring an otherwise insufficiently serious injury to OSHA’s attention, causing them to open an inspection or, at a minimum, issue a Rapid Response Investigation (RRI) letter. RRI letters in turn require the employer to conduct an internal investigation and report its findings and corrective actions to OSHA. A response that OSHA finds unsatisfactory can lead to the agency opening an inspection.
Given the potential consequences of both over-reporting and under-reporting, employers should consider seeking OSHA counsel when evaluating close calls. Counsel can help assess whether an incident is reportable, preserve the employer’s position, and prepare for potential follow-up inquiries from OSHA, including Rapid Response Investigation requests.
When and How Must Injuries and Events Be Reported to OSHA?
| Event | Reporting Deadline | Method |
| Fatality | 8 hours | OSHA hotline, online, or area office |
| Hospitalization / Amputation / Eye loss | 24 hours |
What About State Plans?
OSHA requires State-Plan states to apply the same rules when it comes to deciding whether an injury is recordable and how it is recorded. This means that qualifying establishments in State-Plan states must also submit data to the ITA.
Some State-Plan states have slightly different requirements when it comes to reporting. For example, California and Utah require employers to report injuries within 8 hours. Hawaii requires employers to also report property damages exceeding $25,000. Kentucky’s 8 or 24-hour reporting window starts when the employer, employer’s agent, or another employee learns about the injury.
While State-Plan states’ approach to reporting significantly overlaps with federal OSHA’s, the subtle differences can have a critical effect on whether an employer violates the state’s requirements.
In Summary
OSHA recordkeeping includes two distinct components – recording and reporting – that apply to different events and carry different consequences when missed. It is critical for employers, especially those managing multisite operations, operating in State-Plan states, or performing high-hazard work – to have systems in place before an injury occurs.
Because obligations can vary by establishment, industry, incident type, and jurisdiction, employers should consider consulting knowledgeable OSHA counsel when developing recordkeeping systems, evaluating close reporting calls, or responding to agency inquiries.
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Hema Steele
Senior Counsel
