Top Workplace Occupational Health + Safety Priorities for Employers: What to Expect in 2026

If you are developing or refining your 2026 occupational health and safety management plan right now, don’t refer to buzzwords and trend decks. Instead, start with where enforcement is headed, injuries are occurring, and commonly violated OSHA rules are cited. 

The good news: most of what will matter in 2026 is not mysterious. OSHA has been transparent about high-risk industry designations, the types of hazards it is targeting, and the citations it issues most often for rule violations. Employers that treat 2026 as an inspection-readiness year and tighten the basics will be operationally and legally in a stronger position. 

Priorities and Action Steps 

WorkCare’s subject matter experts have compiled the following workplace health and safety priorities and practical action steps to help your organization prevent recordable incidents and avoid citations in the new year. 

1) Heat exposure: prepare for enforcement now, not after the first heat event 

Extreme temperatures are no longer a seasonal annoyance. Protecting workers from exposure to heat and humidity that can cause serious illness is now an enforcement priority with clearly defined employer obligations. 

OSHA’s Heat Injury and Illness Prevention rulemaking has been active. Formal hearings were recently concluded and post-earning comments collected. In parallel, OSHA has been using emphasis programs to focus inspections on heat-related hazards.  

What employers should do for 2026: 

• Build a written heat illness prevention plan that matches how and where your teams work (outdoors, hot indoor environments, confined spaces, vehicle-based work). 
• Train supervisors to recognize heat risk early and use a clear escalation path before an employee becomes symptomatic. 
• Put objective triggers in place (heat index thresholds, acclimatization steps, break schedules, hydration access). 
• Use reputable guidance and tools, including CDC/NIOSH heat prevention recommendations and the OSHA NIOSH Heat Safety Tool App.  

Why this matters in 2026: Enforcement attention on heat risk exposure is not theoretical. OSHA inspectors will be on the lookout for employers who cannot demonstrate efforts to develop a comprehensive heat illness prevention program. Regardless of the status of heat-related rulemaking, employers are obligated to protect employees under OSHA’s general duty clause. 

2) Fall protection and working at heights: still the fastest path to a citation 

Fall protection is consistently at the top of OSHA’s most frequently cited standards list, providing a clear reminder that lack of attention to the basics leads to injuries, citations, and fines.  

What employers should do for 2026:  

• Re-audit fall protection measures in the field to align with policy documents. Verify anchor points, tie-off behavior, and rescue readiness. 
• Validate ladder safety and training for real working conditions. Don’t rely on toolbox talks. Ladder misuse is consistently associated with injuries and citations.  
• Tighten contractor controls for roofing, maintenance, and short-duration jobs with the risk of one-off lapses. 

Board-level reality: Fall risk is connected to inconsistent enforcement of protection measures, serious injuries and fatalities, and regulatory exposure. 

3) Hazard communication and chemical safety: expect scrutiny on labels, SDS, and training quality 

Hazard Communication is reliably one of OSHA’s most cited standards. This is not because employers do not have binders or digital safety data sheet (SDS) systems. It is because programs often fail at the point of use: labeling, secondary containers, and worker understanding. 

What employers should do for 2026: 

• Verify your chemical inventory is current and matches reality on the floor. 
• Spot check secondary container labels and ease of access to SDSs. 
• Ensure that training is job-specific. If employees cannot identify primary hazards, PPE requirements, and first aid steps for common chemicals, the training is not sufficient. 

4) Lockout/tagout and machine safety: reduce catastrophic risk and repeat violations 

Control of Hazardous Energy (Lockout/Tagout) continues to show up on the top-10 most cited list. OSHA is also focusing on machine hazards. For example, the agency renewed its National Emphasis Program on amputations in manufacturing.  

What employers should do for 2026: 

• Treat LOTO as a field discipline, not a binder discipline. Verify that authorized employees can execute procedures as written. 
• Validate machine guarding and servicing procedures, especially after equipment changes, line reconfigurations, or maintenance turnover. 
• Review incident and near-miss data for “stored energy” patterns and address root causes. 

If you want fewer severe injuries, this is where you win. 

5) Powered industrial trucks, warehouses, and distribution: programmatic inspections are not going away 

Warehousing and distribution hazards are explicitly targeted through OSHA’s National Emphasis Program on Warehousing and Distribution Center Operations. These sites often combine high velocity material handling, temporary labor, tight production schedules, and significant pedestrian-vehicle interaction. 

What employers should do for 2026: 

• Reassess PIT training quality and evaluation practices. Do not assume “certified once” is compliant forever. 
• Separate pedestrians and equipment with physical controls, as feasible, not just floor paint. 
• Address ergonomics, material handling, and peak season staffing risks that increase incidents. 
• Verify that site leadership can pass an inspection interview, not just a paperwork review. 

6) Data-driven enforcement: injury rates, electronic submissions, and targeting matter more than most employers recognize 

OSHA is increasingly data driven in how it targets inspections. Items employers should have on their radar for 2026 include: 

• OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application (ITA) requirements and submission expectations for covered establishments.  
• OSHA’s Site Specific Targeting (SST) inspection program, updated in 2025, which directs enforcement resources to workplaces with high reported injury and illness rates.  

What employers should do for 2026: 

• Clean up recordkeeping discipline, especially around restricted duty, days away, and medical treatment beyond first aid. 
• Audit your incident documentation for consistency. Sloppy narratives and gaps in job-specific details create downstream exposure. 
• Treat OSHA logs and electronic submissions as an operational metric, not an administrative task. 

This is not about gaming the numbers. It is about preventing your data from becoming a target and ensuring what you report is accurate and defensible. 

7) Operational safety systems: fix repeat problems, not individual events 

A quiet but important 2026 priority is operational maturity. Many employers can respond to a single incident. Fewer can eliminate repeat causes across worksites, business units, or an entire enterprise. 

What employers should do for 2026: 

• Identify repeat incident categories (sprains, strains, hand injuries, slips, struck by, vehicle incidents) and build targeted controls for each. 
• Standardize your “first 24 hours” response playbook, including escalation, documentation quality, supervisor involvement, and employee follow-up. 
• Build inspection readiness into daily operations: pre-task planning, job hazard analysis quality, and leading indicators. 

This is where safety stops being a compliance activity and starts being a performance advantage. 

A Practical 2026 Safety Checklist 

To turn these priorities into action, start here: 

• Identify hazards in your workplace(s) that align with OSHA’s most-cited standards.  
• Review heat exposure risk and implement controls using OSHA and NIOSH guidance. 
• Validate warehouse and PIT safety controls in distribution and logistics environments. 
• Tighten compliance with OSHA recordkeeping and injury tracking application requirements. 
• Audit LOTO and machine guarding for field execution, not just documentation.  
• Review injury rate trends and understand how OSHA site-specific targeting works. 

Final Take 

The most important occupational health and safety priorities for 2026 are not “new.” They reflect the same high-consequence hazards and compliance gaps that injure workers and attract enforcement year after year. 

If you do just three things to reduce injuries and avoid becoming an enforcement story as you head into 2026, make these your priority: 

• Treat heat illness prevention as a year-round concern, not a seasonal issue. 
• Be ruthless in your pursuit of ways to mitigate commonly cited hazards in your industry. 
• Manage safety data, recordkeeping, and operational controls like you expect scrutiny. 

Need help navigating workplace safety or want to evaluate your current solutions for Injury Care and Incident Prevention? Contact WorkCare today for a free consultation.