OSHA is continuing to focus its efforts on growth and adding more safety regulations to areas of commercial and industrial worksites. From establishing stricter standards regarding working temperatures to creating new physical locations in generally underrepresented areas across the Southeastern United States, the rest of 2024 and 2025 promises several changes to how safety managers and facility teams get work done. Recent restructuring efforts prioritize greater oversight and community presence for OSHA in key southern states. While these efforts don't necessarily require a massive overhaul of your operations, the closer proximity could cause anxiety over the need for inspections, new equipment, and training to promote proper rooftop safety. To help you keep operating—and protecting your workers—with confidence, we explain the regional OSHA changes. We also discuss how you can stay ready for any impact these changes have on your business by conducting thorough facility evaluations with our Rooftop Safety Audit guide.
OSHA is a federal-level organization that has historically relied on regional offices to conduct inspections, gather data, and maintain relations with businesses within each region. However, the shifting nature of jobs across different industries—agriculture, construction, general manufacturing, HVAC operations, and more—means the old regional layout no longer matched industrial needs. In October 2024, OSHA released a notice of its decision to restructure the then-current regions and create a new region.
The newly reorganized regions are:
Boston
New York City
Philadelphia
Atlanta
Chicago
Dallas
Kansas City
Denver San Francisco
Birmingham, Alabama, is the seat of the newest OSHA region focused on serving Southeastern states including Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle area.
This restructuring should make response times faster. OSHA representatives will be able to more quickly complete inspections, respond to complaints or disasters, and provide regionalized support. You can find which regional office serves your area or search for even more localized OSHA offices by state to get support, resources, and information.
While these changes and closer proximity may make your team anxious about inspections, audits, and violations, they will have minimal impact on your day-to-day when you conduct regular and thorough rooftop safety audits on your facilities. This means constantly evaluating your protocols and equipment, proactively correcting flaws and gaps, and maintaining thorough documentation regarding your efforts.
Start with our Rooftop Safety Audit guide, and then focus on these three areas:
Know about potential problems before they cause an incident, or OSHA finds them for you. By conducting regular safety audits, you can gain more insight into your company's current practices, outdated policies or gaps, and strengths. This practice offers several different benefits:
Have confidence that your modular rooftop railing and warning line system solutions create a compliant and comprehensive perimeter around your rooftop.
Know the status of your safety equipment and harnesses, including a mobile anchor point, lifelines, and the harnesses themselves, so you can have high-quality equipment conveniently accessible.
See where your employees aren't complying with best practices—and then drill down into the cause, such as lack of training, lack of equipment, or contrary incentives.
A baseline appraisal of your safety practices so you can more effectively measure growth and changes over time.
Provide documentation regarding procurement needs and budget changes.
To conduct these audits, start by understanding the process and building out your first project. Over time, your auditing processes will become more streamlined and comprehensive.
Robust safety starts with the right equipment. While wearing safety harnesses, having properly attached fall restraint lines mobile anchor point products and lines, and completing training modules are all important actions, installing proper safety equipment and barriers plays one of the biggest roles.
OSHA guidelines 1926 and 1910 establish the requirements for general industry and construction zone areas, and CCOHS will have similar requirements. From your auditing efforts, you can determine if:
Your current guardrails are tall enough, have the right midrails along the rooftop railing, and can support the requisite 200 pounds of force
On-site safety gates are appropriately installed around stairwells, ladders, hatches, and other footpaths along sudden changes in elevation—and even if they have spring-closed mechanisms so they become part of the solid rooftop perimeter
The warning line system around your rooftops correctly establishes a margin around the edge and clearly marks safe footing
Any gaps in these areas can be easily fixed with the right safety equipment and purchases. Most of these systems are fixtures you can install once and then inspect to make sure they're still in place, making them an easy and valuable addition to your rooftop initiatives.
Finally, boost your compliance efforts by standardizing training and ensuring you have the latest informational resources. Your staff needs to know what different elements of your safety infrastructure mean, when and how to alert facility managers about potential infractions, and how to use safety systems like harnesses, a mobile anchor point, and gates.
Your regional OSHA can support these efforts. Inquire about regionalized training resources, support for complying with other local safety regulations, and insights into the common problems in your industry and region so you can focus on the right priorities.
OSHA's newly reorganized regions may mean more oversight and safety transparency in your area, or it may mean business as usual for external audits and inspections. But the best response is to make sure your auditing processes and safety protocols are up to snuff. Start by thoroughly checking your available safety equipment, your rooftop installations like rooftop railing, and your history of audit performance.
BlueWater by Tractel can help you get ready with a wide array of safety equipment and rooftop solutions. To begin, download your copy of our Rooftop Safety Audit guide. Then identify the gaps in your rooftop fall protection plans and contact us to find the right barriers, rooftop enclosures, harnesses, warning line system solutions, and other products for your property.