Safety / Video library
What Is an OSHA Competent Person?
Watch Todd Jerome Jenkins introduce the OSHA competent person concept, with a companion article exploring the role and its responsibilities.
By Todd Jerome Jenkins, MS, CSP · Free to watch · No account required
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Safety responsibilities · 3:26
Watch the lesson
Read the companion resource: What Is an OSHA Competent Person?
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Companion reading
Make the designation specific to the work
The construction definition of a competent person combines hazard-recognition capability with authorization to take prompt corrective measures. The role is an employer work arrangement. It is not a universal personal credential that follows someone into every task.
Identify the particular activity and its requirements. Decide what the person must be able to recognize, what inspection or evaluation is needed, and how conditions are corrected. Check any additional duties in the task-specific standard. Keep competent-person, qualified-person and authorized-person roles distinct; their requirements depend on the provision being applied.
Confirm coverage while the work is underway. The person needs the information and access needed to assess changing conditions. Workers should know how to reach that person and what happens when a condition is outside the person’s capability or authority. The employer must resolve that gap before relying on the designation.
Before the task
- Name the task and the assigned responsibilities.
- Confirm recognition capability and prompt corrective authority.
- Plan coverage, escalation and review of changed conditions.
Fictional work example
A competent person assigned to one excavation is asked to cover another crew’s different operation without reviewing its conditions or the relevant duties.
Consider: What makes the second assignment defensible?
Compare your reasoning
The employer must verify capability, applicable duties and usable authority for that work. Reusing a title from the first assignment does not answer those questions.
Sources and further reading
Original companion notes and fictional examples · Updated . These notes support study; apply the actual workplace procedures and requirements. Government sources retain their own status and do not endorse this material.