Let’s assume for the sake of argument you have identified a potential fall hazard in your facility and invited a fall protection company to perform a site assessment.  For the purposes of this post, we will also assume that your fall protection provider agrees with your safety director and identifies a fall hazard that violates OSHA regulations.  This scenario occurs each day, and in most cases, the business owner will ask for a quote to remediate the hazard.  From here, management faces a choice: remediate the hazard or shelve the proposal.  Reasons for declining vary by company, but most of the rationalizations fall into three categories.  Employers will:

• Choose not to act until OSHA visits or an employee is injured
• Engineer a “home-made” solution, oftentimes without a qualified person
• Claim there is no money set aside in the budget to address the fall hazard