OSHA fines and penalties are a powerful deterrent—and it’s becoming turbo-charged. The purpose of OSHA penalties is to discourage non-compliance in working facilities like warehouses and motivate employers to see safety protocols and investments as more than worth the cost of installation. There are a wide array of reasons that companies might incur an OSHA violation—simple mistakes, not having an experienced safety management team, and even active neglect and a dangerous focus on shortcuts. That’s why the penalties between first-time offenses and repeated or willful offenses are different—OSHA wants to deter any safety offenses, but repeated offenses that demonstrate an active disregard for safety are worse.
A recent announcement from the US Department of Labor underscores this: in 2025, serious and other-than-serious offenses can incur a maximum penalty amount of $16,550 per violation. But willful or repeated offenses can cost your company an order of magnitude more: $165,514. For many businesses, even this staggering amount may not sufficiently motivate change. But if your organization is trying to implement greater safety protocols and fines of this size can disrupt your business, you can use these fines to drive more stakeholder interest in (and budget for) vital safety projects that make your warehouse more OSHA-compliant and safer for employees. Follow these tips to turn the alarming news into a pathway for business success:
#1: Understand the Risks and Most Likely Infractions
All warehouse facilities have multiple layers of safety and danger to account for. Heat sickness, fire hazards, sharp equipment, indoor falls… each area has its own set of OSHA standards to comply with, and trying to look at all of them at once can frustrate your efforts right from the start. Instead, start by focusing on (1) the most common violations (both generally and in your specific industry) and (2) the most serious potential violations. Evaluating both counts will lead you to a common and severe hazard for warehouses: indoor fall risks.
Consider these potential sources of danger:
- Open loading dock doors: Unless there’s a truck backed up against a loading dock delivery door, it’s an open hole that leads to a six-foot fall. OSHA 1910.28 mandates that employers must implement protections for changes in elevation greater than four feet, such as an extra wide safety gate, and most loading docks fit the bill.
- Stairwells: The top of stairways are more dangerous than the bottom. Workers can stumble, trip, and fall down stairs, especially if their hands are full or they don’t see the sudden change in floor height. OSHA 1910.29 stipulates requirements for your stairway’s industrial swing gates, including the height (42 inches), the ability to handle force (200 pounds), and the type of gate you need.
- Open platforms: Warehouse facilities have plenty of raised platforms, ranging from upstairs floors and mezzanines to narrow pathways above equipment. All of these raised walkways require a solid perimeter of guardrails and safety gates so no one can fall down from a dangerous height to the floor below. However, many facilities have incomplete fall protection systems, or they don’t meet the standards for height, resistance against force, or additional features like midrails that OSHA specifies.
- Ladders: Ladders are more hazardous than stairs, both for personnel using the ladder and personnel standing near the top of the hatch. Your facility may require active fall protection systems for workers climbing the ladder, and it will likely require guardrails, safety gates, and signage around the top of the hatchway (and even warehouse safety gates) to minimize the risk of accidents.
Learning more about these and other common hazards can give you a clear understanding of where your facility might come up short on warehouse fall protection. It also tells you what sort of infractions OSHA inspectors may be most vigilant about.
#2: Understand How to Resolve Those Risks with the Proper Warehouse Fall Protection
Understanding both the hazards and the common fall protection solutions is valuable because it can help your safety project plans start to take form. Take the time to look closer at what hardware solutions, harnesses, training, and signage can suitably address indoor fall risks and protect your company from OSHA penalties. Examine the OSHA standards in detail at this stage because:
- You may have safety violations that are completely unaddressed.
- You may have safety violations that are partially addressed: guardrails without midrails, fall protection harnesses that are largely safe but don’t universally fit your employees, present but out-of-date signage, industrial swing gates that don’t have self-closing mechanisms, and other typical forms of warehouse fall protection that no longer fully align with safety standards.
- For the next step, you’ll need to know what will and won’t pass OSHA inspections.
#3: Audit Your Facility to Find the Gaps
One of the best ways to protect your company from violations and fines is to complete your own inspection before the official inspectors arrive. This is a sound business practice for everything from physical safety to cybersecurity, and companies that proactively assess their own weaknesses both reduce costs from fines and protect their reputations.
Once you’ve narrowed your focus to a specific area of safety, like indoor fall protection, and you know what compliant solutions look like, conduct a safety audit. This gives you clear insight into where your facility might fall short, and you can turn the results of your audit into a to-do list for upcoming safety projects and expenditures. Your first audit also creates a baseline measure for your facility’s safety, and you can conduct additional audits down the line to track your progress—and demonstrate the value of the projects to stakeholders.
#4: Prioritize Identified OSHA Violations and Start Eliminating Them
Whether you’ve conducted an audit or looking into common OSHA violations has led you to recognize some important gaps right from the start, the best practice is to quickly resolve those gaps with as little delay as possible. For every incident of OSHA non-compliance you remove—especially through long-term solutions like warehouse safety gates and guardrails that can provide years of automatic safety—the better you protect your team and reduce the chance of costly fines.
Fabenco Is Here to Help
The right hardware makes all the difference in your efforts to protect your workers and prevent costly violations. Fabenco fall protection systems include warehouse safety gates, extra wide safety gate options for large stairways or dangerous thresholds, industrial swing gates, and other warehouse fall protection systems. Reach out today to tell us what you’re looking for, and we can match your list with OSHA– and CCOHS-compliant fall safety solutions.
