Role of Challenge Administrators in the OSHA Challenge Voluntary Cooperative Program

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) offers various cooperative programs under which, businesses, labor, groups and other organizations can work cooperatively with the agency to help prevent injuries, fatalities, and illnesses in the workplace. One of them is the OSHA Challenge Voluntary Cooperative Program which aims to provide the participants with an avenue to work with their assigned challenge administrators.

Essentially, the key role of the challenge administrators is to develop and improve the safety and health management programs of the challenge participants through training, progress-tracking and mentoring(Bennett & Deitch, 2010, p. 404). They are obligated to follow the program’s three-stage process which includes assessing, learning, and developing (Stage 1), implementing, tracking, and controlling(Stage 2), and reassessing, monitoring, and improving (Stage 3) the participant’s safety programs.

During the first stage, challenge administrators are responsible for educating the participants about elements that are necessary for the development and implementation of effective safety and health management programs. They then proceed to challenge participants to successfully complete and implement the developed policies in the second stage. Participants are expected to improve their programs as guided and begin to integrate policies for special trade contractor safety management program requirements. Lastly, the challenge administrators challenge them to continue reassessing, monitoring and improving their programs(Bennett&Deitch, 2007). After the completion of each stage, OSHA provides the challenge participants with letters of recognition.

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