Denver — Acting OSHA chief Amanda Wood Laihow gave an overview of the philosophy that will be driving the agency in the next three years in a Tuesday morning keynote speech before thousands of EHS pros here at the National Safety Congress.

The key themes of the new OSHA mindset: balance; outreach; collaboration; modernizing; compliance assistance; leveraging technology (AI); new pathways to voluntary compliance; and putting the spotlight on mental health, suicides at work, and psychological safety.

“We can’t achieve our mission with enforcement only,” Laihow said. “That’s why we’re taking a balanced approach. The emphasis is on collaboration and compliance assistance to give employers the knowledge they need. Compliance assistance is key.”

“We are delighted to emphasize compliance assistance, it’s not just enforcement. We know bad actors are out there and it is important to go after them. OSHA is still holding companies accountable. But we are not there for gotcha,” the OSHA deputy said.

Several times Laihow spoke of the need to balance enforcement with compliance assistance and voluntary compliance, which she said was a priority across the Department of Labor.

“Many people think of OSHA as enforcement only. It doesn’t have to always be enforcement,” she said.

Small and mid-size businesses without substantial safety and health knowledge and resources in particular can be benefit from OSHA’s on-site consultation program; a new search platform to glean information from the agency’s wealth of letters of interpretation; and a new initiative, Dedicated Safety Champions, which will recognize the commitment to safety and health of companies without the resources to enter the Voluntary Protection Program. A dedicated web page on OSHA’s web site explains how the Dedicated Safety Champions program works.

Other takeaways from the OSHA update:

• David Keeling, the designated permanent OSHA administrator, is in the final stages of being confirmed by the full Senate.
• Modernizing the lockout-tagout standard to accommodate technology advances was the one standard Laihow mentioned when discussing the most recent regulatory agenda announced several weeks ago. No mention was made of the most highly visible proposal on heat stress prevention, or any other specific standard save for LOTO.
• OSHA is using drones in place of inspectors in some highly dangerous environments and is equipping some inspectors with cameras to better identify hazards during inspections.
• The agency is ramping up attention and resources to combat increasing employee mental health disorders, including suicide, and addressing the need for workplaces to be psychologically safe. “Not all hazards are physical,” said Laihow. A web page on stress and stress reduction is now on OSHA’s web site.
• How OSHA will use artificial intelligence is largely still to be determined. “We’re wading through AI and figuring out what is best,” said Laihow. In this respect OSHA joins the majority of EHS pros trying to decide how best to use AI.