Hazardous Heat: Managing Indoor Heat Risks in Restaurants with Mike Geosano

In this episode of the Self-Insurance Podcast by CRMBC, host Kaya Stanley interviews Mike Geosano, President of O.S.T.S. Consulting, about the new Cal/OSHA indoor heat illness prevention regulations for restaurants. Mike shares his safety consulting background and explains the regulation's specifics, including temperature triggers, hazard assessments, control measures, and required employee training. He also discusses the potential penalties for non-compliance and provides valuable resources for restaurant owners to ensure a safe work environment.

00:00 Introduction to Workplace Safety
00:14 Welcome to the Self-Insurance Podcast
00:36 Meet Mike Geosano
01:27 Unique Hazards in Restaurants
01:45 CalOSHA's New Indoor Heat Regulation
02:53 Specific Requirements for Restaurant Owners
05:20 Assessment and Control Measures
09:18 Employee Training Requirements
11:13 Penalties for Non-Compliance
13:39 Resources and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

So we want to look at that specific work environment and come up with particular controls or measures to make sure employees stay safe. But on the backend, the employers have reduced work comp; they have less risk exposure. 

Welcome to the Self-Insurance Podcast, brought to you by CRMBC. Every week, we interview industry experts, restaurant operators, and brokers about the world of workers' comp self-insurance in California. 

It is my great honor to welcome Mike Geosano today. He is the president of O.S.T.S. Consulting, an occupational safety and training system. Mike, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Thank you very much, Kaya.  

So, tell us a little bit about your background so we know who we're talking to.

Okay, very good. I grew up in the safety supply business around 1990. Coming out of college, I got into the safety consulting side of workplace safety. Long story short, from 1990 to today, we're a comprehensive safety consulting firm, assisting employers in almost all industries, including restaurants, manufacturing, distribution, services, and construction, with safety and health concerns. Our primary goal is to keep our employees well so they can go home with all their fingers and toes at the end of the day.  

Do you do much with restaurants?  

Quite a bit. Yeah, restaurants have unique hazards as opposed to manufacturing firms. So you have the slips, trips, and falls. Workplace violence, which is a new regulation. Interaction with the public draws us to this new regulation with Cal OSHA and the indoor heat illness rates. 

And that's what you're going to talk about today. Thank you for coming on. You're going to tell us a little bit about the history of this regulation, but there was a new reg that just hit at the end of July. So it's really on restaurant owners' radar right now, especially during the heat and with our kitchens and all of that kind of stuff.

So, will you first give us a brief history of where this reg has gone? 

Sure. California is unique. CalOSHA likes to be on the forefront of OSHA. So FedOSHA doesn't have anything in place. So, if you're in the state of California, CalOSHA has been working on the heat illness prevention regulations since 2016.

Outdoor Heat illness prevention has been in place for four or five years now, so many employers and maybe some of our restaurants are familiar with it. But just this year, at the end of July, the Office of Administrative Law approved CalOSHA's version of indoor heat illness prevention for those employees working under a roof with four walls.

And tell us the big picture of what this regulation requires.  

Okay, so it's very unique. If we're working outdoors in direct sunlight, it makes sense. It gets hot, and we sweat a lot, lose a lot of fluids, and start experiencing heat illness concerns. Now, you take that indoors. Well, we have shade and water.

It sounds nice. However, you get into a restaurant environment and into a kitchen where ovens, stoves and fryers generate or radiate a lot of heat. We have employees working in kitchens above 82 degrees, in some cases 90 or 95 degrees, and they are losing a lot of fluids and experiencing health-related concerns. 

So, the IHIPP tells us about that and how it applies to restaurant owners.  

Okay, this regulation is very, very specific. CalOSHA struggled with developing language that was acceptable to the Standards Board and the Office of Administrative Law. But they came up with this current version of the regulation that is effective at 82 degrees. 

We, as a restaurant, need to establish this program and all its elements, which we'll discuss today.  

And tell me a little bit about what triggers the app. I mean, we talked about the temperature. What else triggers the application of this in a restaurant environment? 

So, for the most part, we're talking about restaurants today. And the indoor environment related to those restaurants. We may have some restaurants with outdoor environments when it's hot outside, and those employees working and serving clients in that outdoor environment have to deal with the existing outdoor heat illness regulations.

But today, we're talking about those employees inside the restaurant and, for the most part, in the kitchens, where we have that radiating heat. So, at 82 degrees, the standard is triggered. We must comply with it. Now, there are additional triggers written into the regulation, which will apply to some of our members where the temperature reaches 87 degrees or more or the heat index reaches 87 degrees or more.

Or, if the temperature is 82 degrees and those employees are working in or near equipment that is radiating heat,  additional regulations referred to as assessments and control measures in the standard now apply. 

 So tell us, let's get more in the weeds about the specific requirements of what the restaurant owner needs to do.

If the restaurant owner determines that our indoor environment exceeds 82 degrees or that we're meeting this 87-degree trigger, we need to look at the standard. Just like most other OSHA regulations, we need to evaluate the hazard and determine what the hazard is objectively. Is it 82 degrees?

Is it 85 degrees? Is it 95 degrees? What is that hazard? Document that and then develop a program and policy discussing those specific hazardous environments. That policy will also speak to the control measures we will use to protect our employees, in this case, from heat illness exposure. 

So, we talk about assessments and controls. What specifically would be a good assessment and control program?  

So, in the restaurant environment again, going back to the kitchens,  some may appear straightforward, but it's probably not as straightforward as it looks on paper. So we look at our kitchens and can easily say today that, well, let's install air conditioning or increase the airflow of our air conditioning systems in the kitchens.

Some of our restaurant owners will say we don't even have air conditioning in the kitchen. Okay, well, that's a challenge. Okay, so if we don't have AC and find that it's infeasible to install AC or increase the flow of AC into that work area, what about fans? Can we move air through our kitchen to help cool the environment?

Maybe we're just taking the heat from the ovens, stoves and fryers and moving it outside or into the general restaurant to maintain that air. Or we can consider heat removal hoods. A lot of restaurants already have that. You have removal hoods over our open-flame equipment.

Some have them over the ovens and fryers, just taking the heat from inside the room and exhausting it out. Those are engineering-type controls that must be considered first.  

Do you get into a, when you go into a restaurant, and you're trying to help them troubleshoot this, and I'm sure I, I can already hear some of the operators saying, this isn't, I can't find a cost-effective, or this is going to be daunting to my operation.

So, what do you do in situations where a regulation comes out? I'm not saying it's not important. It's important. People should be working in safe environments, but this must happen not just with this regulation but in other ones, too.  

That's a great question.

We've been in business since 1990. My mantra is we do it right, or we don't do it. When it comes to safety, our primary goal is to take care of the employees. So, we want to assess the specific hazard associated with that particular work environment. From a business owner's standpoint, that may look good up front.

We do care about our employees and want to take care of them. However, there are business matters to consider, right? It's an expense—or could be viewed as an expense. So, we want to look at that specific work environment and develop particular controls or measures to ensure employees stay safe.

But on the back end, employers have reduced work comp and less risk exposure to Cal OSHA issues regulating these work environments. So we want to come in and assess those and put specific plans in place rather than an employer going online and downloading a program or watching a canned online training program.

It doesn't apply to them specifically. So that's how we operate. It is very, very specific to each work environment.  

So, what are the employee training requirements for heat and indoor heat regulation? 

It's very, very similar to outdoor work, but the goal for the employees is to empower them with information to stay safe.

So we need to talk to employees about the regulation of heat illness. Some people don't even know what that means. So, we need to explain what heat illness is. It's, it's cramps, it's fainting, it's heat exhaustion, it's heat stroke. But from there, identifying what those potential illnesses are, we need to talk about signs and symptoms so they can recognize signs and symptoms so we can stay ahead of it. 

If we're getting warm or feeling a little dizzy, let's take five minutes to get some water, cool down, and return to work. Everything will be fine because our bodies adapt well to controlling things like that. So we're going to talk about signs and symptoms and recognize them.

We're going to talk to employees about frequently drinking water so we don't get dehydrated. Again, staying ahead of the curve. We need to talk to employees about rest breaks. If they feel like they're getting overheated, they do have the opportunity to take a break to cool down. Again, staying on top, staying ahead.

All the employee-related elements that we need to discuss are also included in the training. However, we need to talk to supervisors, so they know their responsibility as employees applies to their safety. We should ensure they are drinking, encourage employees to drink water, and stay on the rest break until their symptoms subside before they go back to work.

So, many elements are required, but those are the hot topics. 

And there are a lot of natural consequences of not complying with this, including injured workers, increased workers, comp claims, and other things. But what are the penalties, or what happens if you don't comply and Cal OSHA comes in and investigates? 

Great question. Mostly, what I do in my career these days is defend employers from Cal OSHA citations. So, how an investigation works: A Cal OSHA inspector shows up to an operation via employee complaint, injury or illness. It could be a referral or a programmed inspection, but they show up and have protocols to follow.

Introduce themselves but then start checking their boxes on their checklists: Can I see your IPP? Can I see your indoor heat illness prevention program? What about your emergency action plan? Do you need a lockout tagout program? Do your employees wear respirators? So they're walking through their checklist of items that they need to ask for and review in a particular work environment.

And then let's dial that into indoor heat illness. Specifically, they're going to ask to see the program, they're going to ask to see training records, and what control measures have they put in place to, you know, get that kitchen down below 82 or close to 82. If we get it close to 82 but can't get under, what did you do to help employees avoid any potential heat illness concerns?

They asked for all those items. If the employer. If it doesn't or cannot produce the requested items, those could potentially turn into citations.  If they're investigating and there's no injury or illness,  you could say, okay, the program doesn't exist; it's a general violation.  It could be a few hundred dollar citations.

If you don't have training records and no injury, it could be a few hundred dollars. However, if we have an illness, 9 1 1 is called, an employee is transported to E. R., and maybe he's admitted to the hospital for IV hydration, then we're talking about accident-related serious citations. Those all start at 18,000 dollars.

They can go up to 25,000 dollars in an accident situation, so 18 to 25. And then there are special categories. If an employer continues to have challenges with safety and health, those penalties could go through the roof. They can go up to 140,000 dollars each. Yeah, if we have repeated.  

Yeah. So this is something that they, that people need to take seriously.

Since it's new, there's a ton of support and documents being sent out. What other resources do you point people to to understand this and the documents and reports that they need to do? Are there resources out there? 

Absolutely. We always like to point our clients to CalOSHA's publications page.

As you said, they have many free resources that our tax dollars have paid for them to develop for us. So there's a model program. Employers can download a model indoor heat illness prevention program. There's a lot of red text in there, where the employer just completes the specifics in that program and fills in the blanks, so to speak, where all that red text is asking for site-specific information.

Please don't download the program; print it out and put it in a binder. That's not compliant. You have to interact with that program. But fundamentally, where the rubber meets the road in safety in general, and especially as it relates to mitigating or eliminating injury or illness and mitigating and eliminating potential callous citations, is employee training.

That's where we empower the employees with information so they know how to keep themselves safe. And we have no issues. It's fundamentally simple. 

Yeah. Mike, thank you so much for talking about this timely topic. Your contact info is up there, so that's great. If people want to reach out to you directly but we're off, CRMBC is also offering those resources. We hope to work with you a lot in the future and really appreciate your time today.

Thank you. 

Okay. And thank you very much for having me on today; I appreciate the time. 

Thanks for joining us for the self-insurance podcast brought to you by CRMBC. If there's a topic you'd like to learn more about or if you have any questions, just email us at info at CRMBC. com. Remember to subscribe, like, comment, and share, and join us again next week for more tips on self-insurance.