OSHA expects all employees under a partnership to be meaningfully involved and aware of their rights under the OSHA act. There are many tangible and intangible benefits with partnerships. Ideally a primary benefit is reduced injury and illness. However, all OSHA partnerships must stipulate that partnering employers remain subject to OSHA inspections and investigations in accordance with established agency procedures. It is very important that partnership elements be measurable.
Measurement is especially important in order to ensure that the approaches utilized are effective.
Measures of success are important for demonstrating a cause and effect relationship based upon the incentives utilized, hazard controls implemented and overall success and failure of the partnership. As was mentioned earlier, one of the main benefits of the partnership is leveraging resources. Neither OSHA or its partners can afford to expend valuable resources in a partnership program without being reasonably assured of their investment return. Measures are the best way to validate the partnership. Obviously one of the prime measures OSHA expects it partners to keep is injury and illness data as required under the recordkeeping portion of the OSHA Act.