OSHA Subpart P Training Guide

What Subpart P Requires, in Practice

1. Designate a Competent Person for every excavation site - someone capable of identifying hazards and authorized to take corrective action, including stopping work.
2. Classify the soil using visual and manual tests before selecting a protective system.
3. Select a protective system (sloping, benching, shoring, or shielding) appropriate to the soil type and depth, using tabulated data or, for 20+ foot excavations, a registered professional engineer's design.
4. Provide safe access and egress for excavations 4 feet or deeper, and keep spoil piles and equipment at least 2 feet from the edge.
5. Test for hazardous atmospheres where there's a reasonable possibility of oxygen deficiency or hazardous gas.
6. Inspect daily - before each shift, after rainfall, and whenever conditions change - and document findings.
7. Train workers for the hazards of the work they'll actually perform.

Matching Training to Duties

Subpart P doesn't mandate one specific course, but it does require training "appropriate to their assigned duties." In practice, that means two different depths of training for two different roles:

• Crew members working in or around excavations need hazard-awareness training - see Excavation, Trenching & Shoring Safety Training.
• The designated Competent Person needs full program-oversight training - see Competent Person Training.

Documenting Compliance

A complete training record typically includes: the certificate of completion for each worker, the employer's own site-specific orientation records, daily inspection logs signed by the Competent Person, and documentation of the protective system selected for each excavation. Certificates from this site cover the first item; the rest is the employer's responsibility. See Credential Transparency for more on what a certificate does and doesn't establish.

Full standard text: OSHA Excavation Standards reference page.