Inspectors rarely walk onto a site and immediately reach for the ticket book. Most of them are trained to read a work site the way a mechanic reads an engine: listen for weird noises, look for leaks, notice what is worn out or ignored. In occupational health and safety, those “weird noises” are red flags that suggest a weak program, poor supervision, or a lack of due diligence. In Canada, employers are expected to take all reasonable steps to prevent injuries and illnesses. That expectation of due diligence is built into federal and provincial legislation and interpreted in guidance from organizations like the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS).(CCOHS) When inspectors see signs that those reasonable steps are not happening, they start to dig. They ask more questions, speak with workers privately, and test whether your paperwork matches reality. If they confirm serious non-compliance, they can issue compliance orders, stop work orders, stop use orders, and administrative penalties, depending on the jurisdiction.(Search OHS Laws) The good news is that most of the red flags they follow are visible long before an officer ever arrives. If you deal with them early, inspections become routine conversations instead of emergencies.
Housekeeping is one of the oldest and most reliable indicators of safety culture. If the first impression on site is cluttered walkways, poor floor conditions, blocked exits, and “temporary” storage that looks permanent, inspectors immediately wonder what else is being skipped. Canadian guidance is clear that housekeeping is a core part of a prevention program, not an add-on.(CCOHS) Slips, trips, falls, struck-by hazards, and fire risks all grow in messy environments. From an inspector’s perspective, if you cannot manage the basics that everyone can see, it is unlikely you are managing the less visible risks such as exposure to chemicals, noise, mental health issues, or ergonomic strain. Housekeeping is also one of the easiest things to audit yourself. A short daily walkthrough with a simple checklist, and a rule that anything blocking a path or emergency equipment is fixed immediately, sends a strong signal that safety is non-negotiable.
Inspectors know that paperwork does not equal safety, but they also know that the absence of paperwork almost always means the system is weak. In Canada, employers are expected to identify hazards, assess risks, and implement controls, then document that process.(CCOHS) When your hazard assessments are generic, your safe work practices are obviously borrowed from somewhere else, or critical procedures are “still being finalized,” inspectors quickly infer that the program has not really been implemented. Common documentation red flags include: no current written health and safety policy, no site-specific hazard assessments, inspection forms with the same handwriting and no real findings, and training records that do not match the work being done. When they see this pattern, they know due diligence would be hard to prove after an incident.
One of the quickest ways an inspector checks the health of your program is by talking to workers. They will ask simple questions: What are the main hazards in your job? What training did you get before you started? What do you do if you see something unsafe? Who do you report to? If answers are hesitant, inconsistent, or clearly coached, it tells them the safety management system lives on a shelf, not in daily practice. Guidance from multiple regulators emphasizes that an effective program includes worker participation and clear communication, not just top-down rules.(Canada) When people on the front line do not know their rights, responsibilities, or procedures, inspectors assume gaps in orientation, supervision, and ongoing training.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is a classic red flag area. Inspectors will scan a work area and immediately notice eyewear perched on hard hats, hearing protection hanging from lanyards, or respirators with obviously poor fit. They will then compare what they see to your hazard assessments and procedures. If the paperwork says hearing protection is mandatory, but workers say “we only use it when the inspector comes,” that signals weak enforcement and poor supervision. Common enforcement actions across Canada often reference failures to provide or enforce appropriate PPE.(Norton Rose Fulbright) Inspectors also pay attention to the condition of PPE. Dirty, damaged, or expired equipment suggests the program is set up to tick boxes, not to protect people.
Machine guarding, control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), and safe start-up are chronic problem areas in both Canadian and U.S. data on safety violations.(Canada Safety Training) Inspectors look for removed or bypassed guards, taped-down interlocks, or informal “tagout” practices that do not actually isolate energy. They will ask workers how they clear jams, do maintenance, or troubleshoot equipment. If the real process is “we just shut it off and reach in,” that is a major red flag. Because these failures often lead to amputations and fatalities, officers tend to act quickly and decisively when they see them. Weak lockout procedures, no equipment-specific instructions, or a lack of documented training in hazardous energy control all point to systemic issues.
Chemical safety is another quick compliance check. Inspectors will glance at your chemical storage area, look for unlabelled or hand-labelled containers, and ask where the Safety Data Sheets (SDS) are kept. Under WHMIS and the Canada Labour Code, employers must maintain an inventory of hazardous products, ensure proper labelling, and provide access to current SDS.(Canada) When the SDS binder is out of date, the online system does not work, or workers have never been shown how to use it, inspectors know chemical risk is not being managed properly. They will also watch how chemicals are stored: incompatible products beside each other, no secondary containment, and damaged or missing labels all raise concern about fire, explosion, and exposure risks.
On paper, a workplace with “no incidents” might look great. To an inspector, it can look suspicious. Every workplace has near misses, minor injuries, and property damage. When your logs show almost nothing, it often means people do not feel safe reporting, or the system for reporting is clunky and discouraged. Due diligence guidance across Canada stresses the importance of actively identifying hazards and learning from incidents before they become serious.(Public Safety Canada) If workers tell inspectors “nothing ever gets done when we report” or “we just fix it ourselves,” that points to deeper problems in leadership and safety culture. In contrast, a site with lots of reported near misses and clear follow-up actually reassures inspectors, because it shows people are paying attention and leadership is responding.
In many Canadian jurisdictions, joint health and safety committees (JHSCs) or health and safety representatives are a legal requirement once you hit certain worker thresholds. Inspectors will ask for committee meeting minutes, membership lists, and recommendations. A big red flag is when the committee technically exists, but meetings are rare, minutes are generic, and action items never close. Federal and provincial audits have repeatedly flagged weak or inactive committees as a sign that worker participation and oversight are not functioning as intended.(Public Safety Canada) When committees are robust, minutes are specific, and follow-up is clearly tracked, it shows a living system where issues are identified and resolved.
Almost every workplace has inspection forms, audits, or observations. Inspectors are less interested in the forms themselves and more interested in what happens after issues are identified. One of their favourite questions is: Show me an example of a hazard found, the corrective action you planned, and how you verified it was completed. If your corrective action register is incomplete, full of vague items like “remind workers” or “retrain staff,” or shows the same problems repeating month after month, they will conclude that your management system is not closing the loop. Good due diligence requires identifying hazards, assigning responsibility, setting timelines, and verifying completion.(CCOHS) When that cycle is broken, your documentation becomes evidence against you instead of a defence.
Finally, inspectors pay close attention to supervisors and managers. Do they wear PPE properly? Do they rush work to hit production targets? Do they undercut safety messages by joking about “overkill” or “paperwork for the sake of paperwork”? Canadian guidance on due diligence and safety culture repeatedly points out that leadership behaviour is one of the strongest predictors of real performance.(worksafebc.com) If leaders are visibly committed, workers usually follow. If leaders treat safety as a compliance nuisance, inspectors assume that the program will collapse as soon as external pressure disappears. Mixed messages are a major red flag because they override whatever is written in your policies and procedures.
When enough red flags show up, inspectors in Alberta and other provinces have a wide range of enforcement tools. They can write orders to ensure compliance, require formal hazard assessments, demand engineering reviews, restrict the use of equipment, or in serious cases issue stop work or stop use orders until hazards are controlled.(Search OHS Laws) Some jurisdictions may also issue administrative penalties or pursue prosecutions where they believe there has been a marked departure from what a reasonable employer would do. None of this happens in a vacuum: the visible red flags on site, the quality of your documentation, and the honesty of worker interviews all feed into how far an officer decides to go.
You do not need to wait for an inspector to tell you what is wrong. Calgary Safety Consultants can work with you to spot and remove these red flags before they attract the wrong kind of attention. For small and mid-sized employers, especially those aiming for COR or SECOR, it is easy to get buried in templates and miss what actually matters. We cut through that noise. We can complete a practical compliance gap assessment that looks at your documentation, your work sites, and your culture, then translate that into a clear action plan you can actually execute. We can help you build or refresh your OH&S manual, ensuring it is aligned with Alberta OHS legislation and relevant standards but still readable by supervisors and workers. We can design or overhaul your inspection program so that it focuses on real risks, not just checking fire extinguisher tags. We can deliver targeted training for supervisors, workers, and joint health and safety committees so they know how to spot hazards, report them, and follow through on corrective actions. We can also run mock inspections to stress-test your program, coach your leaders on how to interact with officers, and leave you with checklists and tools you can reuse, rather than creating ongoing dependency.
If you prefer, we can support you in a fractional OH&S advisor model, where you keep ownership of your program and we provide ongoing guidance, review key documents, and step in when you need expert backup. The goal is not to make your workplace look perfect on audit day. The goal is to build a system that holds up during real work, real incidents, and real inspections. When due diligence is baked into day-to-day operations, red flags shrink, and inspectors spend more time verifying and less time digging.
My view is straightforward: if any of these red flags feel uncomfortably familiar, you should treat them as useful early warning lights, not as reasons to panic. Most organizations are not intentionally careless; they are busy, stretched, and reacting. The problem is that OHS law and due diligence do not make special allowances for being busy. After a serious incident, regulators, courts, and families will look at what you did ahead of time, not at how sorry you are afterward. This piece puts a spotlight on the patterns that inspectors use to decide where to focus. In my opinion, the real value is not in avoiding enforcement, but in using these red flags as a practical checklist to raise your standard. If you address housekeeping, documentation, training, PPE, machinery control, chemicals, reporting, committees, corrective actions, and leadership messages in a disciplined way, you not only make inspections easier, you make work tangibly safer and more predictable for your people. That is the kind of safety program that actually earns trust.
Connect with us here and let us help you improve your OH&S practices.
Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) – Due diligence in health and safety: https://www.ccohs.ca/topics/legislation/duediligence
Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) – Workplace housekeeping basics: https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/housekeeping.html
Government of Canada – Work place inspections under the Canada Labour Code: https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/health-safety/reports/inspections.html
Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act – Part 7 Compliance and Enforcement: https://search-ohs-laws.alberta.ca/legislation/occupational-health-and-safety-act/part-7-compliance-and-enforcement
LawNow – What happens when someone does not comply with Alberta’s OHS laws: https://www.lawnow.org/what-happens-when-someone-does-not-comply-with-albertas-ohs-laws
Canada Safety Training – Most common occupational safety violations in Canada: https://www.canadasafetytraining.com/Safety_Blog/most-common-occupational-safety-violations-in-canada.aspx
Train and Develop – OSHA’s Top 10 safety violations: https://trainanddevelop.ca/blog/oshas-top-10-safety-violations-in-2021
Samsara – A safety manager’s guide to the most common OSHA violations: https://www.samsara.com/guides/most-common-osha-violations
WorkSafeBC and other provincial resources on due diligence and supervisor responsibilities: https://www.worksafebc.com/en/health-safety/create-manage/enhancing-culture-performance/due-diligence
Public Safety Canada – Audit of Occupational Health and Safety (insights on committees and meetings): https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/dt-ccptnl-hlth-sfty/index-en.aspx
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Inspectors use red flags such as poor housekeeping, weak documentation, or untrained workers as fast indicators of deeper system issues, so they can prioritize their time on the highest-risk sites and activities.
There is no single biggest red flag, but a combination of messy housekeeping, generic or outdated paperwork, and workers who cannot explain procedures usually tells inspectors your system is not fully implemented.
You reduce that risk by having solid hazard assessments, practical procedures, active committees, closed-out corrective actions, and visible leadership support so that the program works in real life, not just on paper.
Calgary Safety Consultants is here to help you ensure compliance, enhance safety, and streamline your OH&S program. Don’t wait—fill out the form, and we’ll connect with you to discuss how we can support your business. Let’s get started!
Calgary Safety Consultants delivers game-changing COR Audits and OH&S consulting designed to keep your business safe, compliant, and accident-free. With 30+ years of expertise in high-risk industries like oil & gas, construction, and manufacturing, we understand the unique challenges you face. We offer tailored safety solutions that not only meet regulatory standards but also reduce operational risks and protect your workforce. From conducting thorough safety audits to implementing comprehensive safety management systems, we ensure your team is fully supported. Our hands-on, collaborative approach means we're with you every step of the way, helping you achieve a safer, more efficient workplace. Let us handle the heavy lifting so your team stays protected, and your business thrives!
