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Pop Quiz: OSHA Top 10

Here’s a challenge for you: write down a top 10 list in under a minute. It could be any top 10 —your 10 favorite songs, movies, baby names—anything you feel like listing.

Whatever it is, I bet you can’t finish it in less than 60 seconds.

I tried this out myself with a pen, paper, and a timer. It took me a full 2 minutes and 20 seconds to come up with a list of my top 10 favorite candy products:

This should have taken me, like, 30 seconds—I love candy. But I stalled out around number 7, went blank, and ended up including some pretty questionable choices. I mean, Laffy Taffy? PayDay bars? No offense if those are your favorites, but they sure aren’t mine.

Like I said, challenging! Evidently, we’re only able to hold 7 items in our working memory, which explains why I hit a wall after Starburst.

But this is candy. When lives are at stake, we can’t afford to let the limits of cognition get in the way. And there’s one 10-item list every health and safety professional should commit to memory.

I’m referring, of course, to the OSHA Top 10. If your job is to keep people safe and keep your organization out of trouble, you need to be thoroughly familiar with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s 10 most frequently cited standards. Given their enormous human and financial costs, you can’t afford to forget about any of the items on the OSHA Top 10.

Do you know the most frequently cited OSHA violations? Can you identify why companies often get cited for them? Test your OSHA knowledge with this short quiz.

How’d you do? If you got every question correct, feel free to reward yourself with a Reese’s Cup. If you didn’t get them all, maybe treat yourself to a lesser candy, like Jolly Ranchers or a PayDay bar.

Whatever your score, KPA can help you avoid these 10 health and safety risks, as well as the other 78,239,441(ish) OSHA standards you’re on the hook for. Contact us.

For more workplace safety resources, check out the KPA Insights library.

About the Author

Toby Graham

Toby manages the marketing communications team here at KPA. She's on a quest to help people tell clear, fun stories that their audience can relate to. She's a HUGE sugar junkie...and usually starts wandering the halls looking for cookies around 3pm daily.
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