OSHA Recordkeeping

What is the OSHA Recordkeeping?

The OSHA Recordkeeping course from the American Institute of Safety Professionals provides comprehensive training on 29 CFR Part 1904 — the federal regulation that requires employers to record and report work-related injuries and illnesses. OSHA recordkeeping is the most universally applicable compliance requirement in occupational safety: every employer with more than 10 employees (with limited industry exemptions) must maintain OSHA injury and illness records, and getting recordkeeping wrong generates citations, penalties, inflated injury rates, insurance premium increases, and contractor prequalification failures. Yet recordkeeping is also the compliance area where the most mistakes are made, because the recordability decisions require nuanced judgement: is this injury work-related? Does it meet the recording criteria? Is this a privacy concern case? Does the first aid exception apply? This course develops the competency to answer these questions correctly every time.

The OSHA recordkeeping system serves three purposes: it creates a national database of occupational injury and illness (used by OSHA and BLS for enforcement targeting and research), it provides employers with their own safety performance data (TRIR, DART, severity rates), and it gives workers access to information about the injuries and illnesses occurring in their workplace. The system centres on three forms: the OSHA 300 Log (Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses), the OSHA 300A (Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses posted annually), and the OSHA 301 (Injury and Illness Incident Report for each recordable case). Since 2017, electronic submission of recordkeeping data through the OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA) has added a digital compliance dimension that many employers still struggle with.

The curriculum covers which employers must keep records (size and industry exemptions under §1904.1–2), what makes an injury or illness recordable (§1904.4–7: general recording criteria, work-relatedness, new case determination, recording criteria for specific case types), the special recording criteria for needlestick injuries, hearing loss, tuberculosis, and musculoskeletal disorders, privacy concern cases, the three OSHA forms (300, 300A, 301) with line-by-line completion guidance, severe injury reporting requirements (8-hour fatality, 24-hour hospitalisation/amputation/eye loss under §1904.39), electronic submission via the ITA portal, TRIR and DART rate calculation, 5-year record retention, employee access to records, the anti-retaliation provision (§1904.35(b)(1)(iv)), and the common recordkeeping errors that generate OSHA citations.

All training is delivered 100 percent online through Microsoft Teams and the American Institute of Safety Professionals Learning Management System (LMS). Upon successful completion, graduates receive an American Institute of Safety Professionals certificate, professional wallet card, and official transcript, all employer-verifiable at amiosp.com/student-verifications.

Who should take this course?

• Safety officers responsible for maintaining the OSHA 300 Log and making recordability decisions
• HR managers who manage workers’ compensation claims and need to understand the parallel OSHA recording requirements
• Safety managers who oversee recordkeeping compliance, calculate injury rates, and report performance metrics
• Occupational health nurses who determine whether injuries require medical treatment beyond first aid
• Risk managers and insurance coordinators who use TRIR, DART, and EMR for insurance and prequalification
• Supervisors who complete initial incident reports and must understand what information is needed
• Anyone designated to make the record-it or don’t-record-it decision for their organisation

What will you study?

Credentials employers can verify in seconds