Introduction

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 requires that each employer "...furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm..." (29 U.S.C. 651, Sec. 5(a)(1)).

Basic Employer Responsibilities

The employer should see that workers are properly instructed and supervised in the safe operation of any machinery, tools, equipment, process, or practice which they are authorized to use or apply. This should not be construed to require a supervisor positioned on every part of an operation or to prohibit workers from working alone.

The employer should take all reasonable means to require employees:

• work and act in a safe and healthful manner;
• conduct their work in compliance with all applicable safety and health rules;
• use all means and methods, including but not limited to, ladders, scaffolds, guardrails, machine guards, safety belts and lifelines, that are necessary to safely accomplish all work where employees are exposed to a hazard; and
• not remove, displace, damage, destroy or carry off any safety device, guard, notice or warning provided for use in any employment or place of employment while such use is required by applicable safety and health rules.

Every employer should be responsible for providing the health hazard control measures necessary to protect the employees' health from harmful or hazardous conditions and for maintaining such control measures in good working order and in use.

Employers should inform the employees regarding the known health hazards to which they are exposed, the measures which have been taken for the prevention and control of such hazards, and the proper methods for utilizing such control measures.

Basic Employee Responsibilities

All employees should conduct their work in compliance with their employer's safety policies and rules. Employees should report all injuries immediately to the person in charge or other responsible representative of the employer. Employees should make full use of safeguards provided for their protection.

If your employer does not currently have general formal/written safety rules, please begin now to make sure these rules and others specific to your workplace are written and communicated to employees.

Safety Inspections

Employers should make sure their workplaces are inspected by a qualified person or persons as often as the type of operation or the character of the equipment requires. Defective equipment or unsafe conditions found by these inspections should be replaced or repaired or remedied promptly. Make sure a written and dated report, signed by the person or persons making the inspection, is completed and used to provide information to improve the safety management system.

Course Objectives

This online course will cover some of the basic principles and concepts related to hazard identification and control. More specifically, if you complete the reading and assignments, at the end of the course, you will be able to:

• identify the 13 general workplace hazard categories;
• describe the four primary procedures used to identify hazards;
• discuss the various accident types that might result if hazards are not corrected;
• describe possible engineering and management hazard control strategies;
• discuss various problem-solving techniques to help control hazards; and
• prepare an effective recommendation.

Modules

To begin your training, click on the module links below. If you are just starting this course, you should start with module 1.

1. Basic Concepts
2. Hazard Categories
3. Identifying Hazards
4. Analyzing the Workplace
5. Controlling Hazards
6. Problem Solving
7. Effective Recommendations

Course 704 Final Exam

OSHAcademy course final exams are designed to help ensure students demonstrate a sufficient understanding of the content covered within each course. To help demonstrate this understanding, students must achieve a minimum score of 70% on final exams. It is OSHAcademy's policy to protect the integrity of our exams and, as a result, we do not provide missed questions to students.

After you have studied all of the course material and taken the module quizzes, you can take the final exam. The module quizzes are optional, but we highly recommend you take each quiz, as the questions are similar to those on the final exam.

This is an open book exam. As you are taking the exam, if you find a question you are unsure of, you should use the course study guide or course web pages to research the correct answer. Don't worry if you fail the exam. You can study and retake the exam when you are ready.

If you have already paid for a Certificate Program

If you have already paid for your certificates, your exam score will be displayed in your student dashboard next to the course. You will also be able to view or print the course PDF certificate if you purchased this option. Your PDF transcript will also be automatically updated to include the course.

If you only want free training

You are welcome to take all of our courses for free! We only charge a fee if you want certificates, transcripts and exam scores to document your training. If you have not made a payment for your certificate, we will archive your exam results and you will see "Completed!" next to the course if you passed the exam. If you did not pass the exam with a score of 70% or higher, you will need to retake the exam.

Course 704 Study Guide. You can save this study guide to your computer for offline studying, or print the study guide if you prefer.

Additional Resources

• OSHA 2254, Training Requirements in OSHA Standards and Training Guidelines, OSHA
• ANSI Z490.1-2009, Criteria for Accepted Practices in Safety, Health, and Environmental Training.
• Assessing Occupational Safety and Health Training, NIOSH
• Napo's Films, Via Storia
• Injury Data and Statistics
• Safeopedia