Emergencies at the workplace are unpredictable, whether it's an isolated incident or large scale disaster. That being the fact, you have little time to act, yet less margin for error. As an employer, you have the obligation to familiarize yourself with mandatory safety regulations; as an employee, you are exposed to hazards every day on the job.

With that responsibility bearing on the shoulders of small to midsized business owners, they often wonder if their in-house safety team is indeed equipped to deal with all facets of occupational health, safety and environmental issues that continuously arise.

That’s when the search is on for an outside safety consulting group to assist on some projects. In-house safety supervisors may have a hard time acknowledging to their employers that they need outside help but once they feel the taste it’s hard to let go. The challenge with that is that once the project is done, so is the service and the experts your company has grown accustomed to lean onto. Additional correspondence with them usually comes along with a bill in the mail.

That’s where the safety contract comes in. Some safety consulting companies will sign contracts with their clients to provide services on a weekly/monthly/quarterly basis. Legend Safety-a New York-based Safety Consulting group providing safety services in the areas of Occupational Safety & Health Training, OSHA Safety Audits & Consultation, Emergency Preparedness & Response, and Risk Management Solutions- offers different packages for small to midsized companies who can either not afford a full time in-house safety team or to work “along with” the full time in-house safety team once a week, month, etc.

The obvious challenge of going that route is that companies hardly can pay for their in-house safety team, let alone hiring outside help. That’s when companies do the increasingly popular move of entirely outsourcing safety! Companies are facing increasing competition by overseas manufacturing and they are forced lay off staff. “It used to be that the safety department was never diminished or it was and the company, as a result, suffered greatly as was in most cases evidenced by their increased volume on their OSHA 300.” says Mordy Neuman, Chief Operating Officer of Legend safety. “Nowadays, companies are getting smart; they are laying off their safety team and are simply outsourcing safety.” Mr. Neuman maintains that outsourcing safety not only saves companies money but also gives them access to a wider array of safety expertise they didn’t have with their limited in-house safety staff.

“When outsourcing safety,” Mr. Neuman continues, “companies realize that they actually don’t need a full time safety team. Once the major safety programs are handled by Legend Safety, who come in anywhere from twice a week to twice a year, the rest can easily be picked up by HR, maintenance, or the safety committee.

Legend Safety’s team of safety specialist include former OSHA compliance safety officers, state fire inspectors, paramedics, and of course specialists in many industrial arenas. From CSPs to CIHs to experts in OSHA, EPA, FAA, DOT and more, you are guaranteed to find the safety specialist who thoroughly “gets” your business and its challenges.