OSHA Focus Four 2026: Preventing Construction Fatalities

OSHA's Focus Four are the four hazards covered by its Construction Focus Four outreach training: falls, struck-by, caught-in or -between, and electrocution. In 2024, the most recent year in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (checked on 4 October 2026; BLS published the 2024 results on 19 February 2026), the private construction industry recorded 1,034 fatal work injuries. Falls, slips and trips caused 389 of them (about 38%), the largest event category, and contact incidents, the BLS category that includes struck-by and caught-in/between events, caused 161 (about 16%) (BLS, Table A-1, 2024). Electrocutions sit inside a broader BLS category, exposure to harmful substances or environments, which that table does not break out.

This guide sets out a 2026 playbook: per-hazard prevention controls, the digital workflows that make them stick, and a 30-60-90 rollout that a regional GC can execute without hiring an army.

Why the Focus Four hazards persist

Three structural reasons keep the Focus Four lethal:

1. Rotating, multi-tier workforces. A mid-size project site, for example, may have direct employees, a principal subcontractor, two or three tiers below that and self-employed trades, speaking several languages. Single-site safety training doesn't reach them all.
2. Dynamic scope. Today's elevated work edge is gone tomorrow; today's exclusion zone is tomorrow's pour. Controls that worked on Monday aren't the controls needed on Wednesday.
3. Documentation gaps. When the inspector or coroner arrives, the question isn't whether you had a plan — it's whether you can produce the inspection, training and permit evidence for that worker on that task at that time. Paper binders make that hard.

Digital site-safety platforms (see our construction QHSE software guide) are meant to address these three gaps. Whether a given product does so is something to test in a demonstration on your own work packs.

Hazard #1 — Falls

Falls are the largest single cause of death in construction: falls, slips and trips caused 389 of the 1,034 private construction deaths in 2024, about 38% (BLS). In the US the baseline is OSHA's construction rule, which requires fall protection on unprotected sides and edges 6 ft or more above a lower level (29 CFR 1926.501(b)(1)); the general-industry trigger is 4 ft (29 CFR 1910.28). In the EU, temporary work at height is covered by Annex II, point 4, of the Work Equipment Directive (Directive 2009/104/EC).

Prevention controls:

• Pre-task fall plan for every elevated work activity above the trigger height. Plan identifies edge condition, anchor points, equipment, rescue plan.
• PFAS (personal fall arrest system) inspection before every use, as 1926.502(d)(21) requires, plus a periodic formal inspection (six-monthly in this guide's program); any system that has arrested a fall or taken an impact load is removed from service until a competent person clears it (1926.502(d)(19)).
• Edge protection by default: passive controls (guardrails, parapets, nets) preferred over active PFAS wherever practical, per the hierarchy of controls.
• Scaffold inspection by a competent person before each work shift and after any occurrence that could affect structural integrity (1926.451(f)(3)), recorded on the tag; immediate quarantine if the tag is missing or out of date.
• MEWP pre-use check: lift controls tested each day before use (1926.453(b)(2)(i)), a lanyard attached to the boom or basket (1926.453(b)(2)(v); this guide specifies a full-body harness and a short lanyard), and no sitting or climbing on the basket edge (1926.453(b)(2)(iv)).
• Rescue plan documented before work starts, because OSHA requires prompt rescue after a fall (1926.502(d)(20)). "Call 911" is not a rescue plan: OSHA notes that suspension in a fall arrest device can lead to unconsciousness and then death in less than 30 minutes (OSHA SHIB 03-24-2004).

Digital workflow: mobile pre-task fall plan that pulls from the work-pack, scaffold tag scannable by QR, MEWP pre-use linked to plant register, PFAS register with serial-level inspection history.

Hazard #2 — Struck-by

Struck-by covers vehicles, equipment, falling objects and swinging loads.

Prevention controls:

• Internal traffic management plan for every site: vehicle routes, pedestrian routes, segregation, crossing points, blind spots marked.
• Exclusion zones for lifts, demo and high-energy tasks — physically barricaded, signed, monitored by a banksman/spotter.
• Hard barriers preferred over tape; tape preferred over verbal-only.
• Reversing controls: plan routes to avoid reversing and separate pedestrians. For earthmoving or compacting equipment with obstructed rear views, OSHA 1926.602(a)(9)(ii) allows an operating reverse alarm distinguishable from surrounding noise or an employee signaling that reversing is safe. Specify any stricter site rule; do not assume cameras or sensors alone satisfy the applicable requirement.
• Tool tethering at height for any drop hazard; toe boards on scaffolds; hard hat with chinstrap mandatory where overhead work is active.
• Lift plan for every crane and lifting operation, briefed to all in the lift area.

Digital workflow: daily traffic-management plan attached to the site, exclusion-zone briefing electronically acknowledged by every operative entering, lift plans versioned and signed.

Hazard #3 — Caught-in/between

Caught-in/between covers trenching cave-ins, equipment crush, machinery entanglement and unguarded moving parts.

Prevention controls:

• Trench/excavation: competent-person inspection daily before work starts and after every rainstorm (1926.651(k)(1)); a protective system (sloping, benching, shoring or shield) for any excavation 5 ft or deeper unless it is made entirely in stable rock (1926.652(a)(1)); a ladder, stairway or ramp in trenches 4 ft or deeper, placed so that no one has more than 25 ft of lateral travel to reach it (1926.651(c)(2)). No entry without inspection.
• Machinery guarding: all moving parts guarded, LOTO required for guard removal, guards reinstated and verified before re-energise.
• Plant operator competency verified, exclusion zone around operating plant enforced.
• Demolition sequence planned, structural pre-assessment, controlled-collapse method.

Digital workflow: mobile trench inspection card with photo evidence, daily; LOTO digital workflow chained to permit-to-work (see our Lockout/Tagout Digital Guide); operator competency verified at gate induction.

Hazard #4 — Electrocution

Electrocution covers energised contact, overhead lines, ungrounded equipment, and water and electricity together.

Prevention controls:

• GFCI protection on all 120-volt, single-phase, 15- and 20-ampere receptacle outlets on construction sites that are not part of the permanent wiring and are in use by employees (1926.404(b)(1)(ii)).
• Assured equipment grounding conductor program, the alternative OSHA accepts instead of GFCIs (1926.404(b)(1)(i)): cord sets and cord-and-plug equipment visually inspected before each day's use, tested before first use, after repair and after any incident that could have damaged them, and tested at intervals not exceeding 3 months (6 months for fixed cord sets and receptacles not exposed to damage), with the tests recorded and the program written down and available on site (1926.404(b)(1)(iii)).
• Overhead line clearance: for cranes, a minimum of 10 ft from lines up to 50 kV, rising with voltage (1926.1408, Table A), plus equipment-specific look-up; pre-task survey for every site.
• Electrical isolation and protection: plan to de-energize and verify safe conditions. For construction, 1926.416(a)(1) requires protection against contact by de-energizing and grounding or effective guarding. The separate general-industry rule, 1910.333(a)(1), requires de-energization except for specified increased-hazard or infeasibility circumstances; its limited below-50-V exception is not a universal permit threshold. A permit documents an authorized process and does not itself make energized work permissible.
• LOTO for any maintenance, repair or modification of electrical equipment; see digital LOTO above.
• Wet conditions: additional precautions, no live work in wet conditions without engineering review.

Digital workflow: retain the isolation plan, verification and responsible persons. Where an authorized energized-work process applies, link its approval and qualified electrical assessment; do not assume a software-generated boundary is valid without checking its study and inputs.

A worked example: one task, four hazards

This example is constructed for illustration. A crew installs cladding on the third storey of a steel-frame building, from a mobile elevating work platform (MEWP) positioned beside an open edge, while a crane lifts panels to the floor above and electricians run temporary lighting on the same level. The planner's job is to turn one work-pack line into checks that can be answered yes or no before work starts.

Two lessons come out of laying it this way. First, the record is a set of dated answers by a named person, which is what an inspector or an investigator will ask for. Second, most rows are site rules or planning questions rather than regulations, so the card should say which is which; a checked box does not turn a site preference into a legal requirement or the reverse.

What to ask a vendor about a Focus Four workflow

These questions apply to any product and the answers are the vendor's claims until you see them work on your own project. The site's fall protection software page and working at heights software page describe what the reviewed profiles document, without ranking them.

1. Can a card be built from our own pre-task questions, and does the answer history stay with the task if the template changes later?
2. Does the app work with no signal on a basement or a remote site? The offline-support study explains how to test it.
3. Can a subcontractor's worker complete and sign a card without a paid licence, and who owns that record if the subcontract ends?
4. How are equipment inspections, such as harness and cord-set test records, linked to a serial number?
5. Which integrations with permit-to-work or contractor systems are included, and which are conditional? The integration-claims study explains how to check.

The glossary entries for the hierarchy of controls, permit to work and serious injury or fatality (SIF) give the terms used above, and the contractor prequalification playbook covers the subcontractor evidence discussed below.

The Focus Four scorecard

Lagging indicators (TRIR, fatality count) tell you what already happened. The leading set tells you whether you're losing ground:

• Pre-task plan completion rate — percentage of high-risk tasks with a completed pre-task plan in the platform.
• PFAS inspection compliance — percentage of harnesses with a current periodic inspection (six-monthly in this guide's program). Target 100%.
• Scaffold tag freshness — percentage of active scaffolds with a tag showing this shift's competent-person inspection.
• Permit close-out time — median hours between permit issue and final close-out. Suggested target: under 24 hours.
• Near-miss rate (Focus Four) — Focus-Four-tagged near-misses per 200,000 hours. Trending up early in a program is good — it means people are reporting (see our near-miss reporting guide).
• Subcontractor induction currency — percentage of active operatives with a current induction.
• Exclusion-zone breach reports — reports per month per active site. Target trending down.

Digital workflows that make controls stick

The difference between a program that works and one that doesn't isn't the controls — it's whether the controls are visible, current and signed off at the right moment. The 2026 stack:

• Mobile inspection cards per hazard — falls, struck-by, caught-in/between, electrocution each get a card tied to the work-pack and triggered by the daily plan.
• Permit-to-work spine — every energised electrical, hot work, confined space, work-at-height task generates an electronic permit chained to LOTO, gas testing and fire-watch evidence.
• Supervisor escalation tree — any deficiency above a defined severity auto-escalates to site manager, project director or HSE director.
• Subcontractor portal — direct visibility into supply-chain inductions, RAMS sign-off and KPI scorecards. See our Contractor Management Software 2026 guide.
• Single source of truth for evidence — when the inspector arrives, every record for every worker on every task is one filter away.

Subcontractor governance under Focus Four

On a multi-tier site, a defensible program treats the supply chain as first-class:

• Pre-qualification at gate-1 includes Focus-Four-specific evidence: PFAS register, trench training, LOTO competency, qualified-electrician count.
• Site induction includes Focus-Four-specific content per the worker's trade.
• Daily TBT and pre-task plan apply equally to subcontractor employees; sign-off is mandatory before they pick up tools.
• KPI scorecards by subcontractor surface trends — a subcontractor with a rising near-miss rate is a leading indicator the project director needs to see this week, not at month end.

30-60-90 day program rollout

Days 1–30 — Baseline. Run the Focus Four scorecard manually against the last 12 months. Identify the top three drivers in your portfolio. Stand up the mobile inspection cards for those three.

Days 31–60 — Pilot site. One active project runs the full Focus Four digital stack — pre-task plans, permit-to-work, mobile inspections, supervisor escalation tree, subcontractor portal. Measure leading-indicator trends weekly.

Days 61–90 — Portfolio rollout. Cascade to remaining active sites, subcontractor onboarding to the supply-chain portal, KPI dashboards live at site / project / corporate level, client-audit-ready evidence pack generated on demand.

FAQ

Why do the Focus Four hazards persist? Work changes, crews rotate and controls can fail. Start by eliminating the hazard or exposure where feasible, such as assembling at ground level or de-energizing equipment; then apply the remaining hierarchy of controls. A digital record can support coordination, but it does not replace physical protection or competent verification.

Are the Focus Four the same as the OSHA Top 10? No — the OSHA Top 10 is the most-cited standards list (for FY2025: fall protection general requirements, hazard communication, ladders, lockout/tagout, respiratory protection, scaffolding, fall protection training, powered industrial trucks, eye and face protection, and machine guarding; OSHA). The Focus Four are the four hazards covered by OSHA's Construction Focus Four outreach training. They overlap heavily but aren't identical. See our OSHA Top 10 Citations 2026 Prevention Playbook.

Do I need OSHA training for subcontractor employees on my site? The training duties in OSHA standards fall on each worker's own employer, but under OSHA's Multi-Employer Citation Policy (CPL 02-00-124), a directive dated 10 December 1999 that OSHA's site still lists as current, a controlling employer, typically the GC, must exercise reasonable care to prevent and detect violations on the site, including those that expose subcontractor employees. Induction and training records are how you show that care.

What's the role of pre-task planning? Pre-task planning forces the crew to identify the hazards, the controls and the rescue plan before the work starts. The job safety analysis template and the glossary entry on JSA cover a related method.

How do leading KPIs differ from lagging KPIs? Lagging KPIs (TRIR, fatality count) tell you what already happened. Leading KPIs (PFAS inspection currency, pre-task plan completion, near-miss rate) tell you whether the system is healthy right now. A 2026 program reports both.

Does this work for smaller contractors? Yes — the same digital workflows apply, just scaled. For example, a subcontractor with 50 operatives could run the full Focus Four stack on a mobile-first platform. See the construction QHSE software guide and the risk assessment software for construction page.

Sources

• OSHA, Construction Focus Four Training
• US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, Table A-1: fatal occupational injuries by industry and event or exposure, 2024
• eCFR, 29 CFR 1926.501, duty to have fall protection, 29 CFR 1926.502, fall protection systems and 29 CFR 1910.28, general-industry fall protection
• eCFR, 29 CFR 1926.451, scaffolds and 29 CFR 1926.453, aerial lifts
• eCFR, 29 CFR 1926.651 and 29 CFR 1926.652, excavations
• eCFR, 29 CFR 1926.404, wiring design and protection, 29 CFR 1926.1408, power line safety for cranes and 29 CFR 1910.333, electrical safety-related work practices
• OSHA, Suspension Trauma/Orthostatic Intolerance, SHIB 03-24-2004 (updated 2011)
• OSHA, Multi-Employer Citation Policy, CPL 02-00-124
• OSHA, Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Standards, FY2025
• EUR-Lex, Directive 2009/104/EC on the use of work equipment

Updated 4 October 2026: the BLS 2024 fatality counts, the OSHA FY2025 Top 10 list, the Focus Four training page and each cited paragraph of 29 CFR 1910 and 1926 were re-opened. The assured grounding test intervals were completed (6-month interval for fixed items and the other test occasions), the multi-employer directive was dated, a promotional sentence was reworded, and a worked example and vendor questions were added.

Corrected 23 September 2026: statistics without a primary source were sourced, labelled as examples or removed, and the regulations cited now link to their official texts.