Jobsite Safety & Conduct (Deferral): the full procedure

Conduct a consistent, professional, hazard-aware jobsite while deferring all formal safety rulings to the governing standards.

• Applies to: All field staff
• Frequency: Every job
• Scope: Covers professional conduct, hazard awareness, and the business process for arriving, working, and leaving a site. All fall, height, electrical, and PPE requirements defer to OSHA standards, ANSI/IWCA I-14.1, and the safety plan; high-rise/suspended access is out of scope.

What you need

• Written safety plan
• PPE per safety plan
• First-aid kit
• Hazard cones/signage
• Company ID/uniform
• Work order with site notes

The procedure, step by step

1. Arrive prepared and identifiable — Show up in uniform/ID with the work order and the equipment the job scope requires; review any site notes from the walkthrough.
2. Do a site hazard scan — On arrival, scan for the day's hazards — surfaces, weather, power lines, pets, traffic, public access — and plan around them per the safety plan.
3. Defer safety rulings to the standards — Any fall, height, ladder, electrical, or PPE decision follows OSHA standards, ANSI/IWCA I-14.1, and the safety plan. This SOP does not override them.
4. Confirm scope is in bounds — If the site needs rope descent, suspended access, or high-rise work, stop — it is out of scope and certified-only; refer it out.
5. Set up considerate of customer and public — Keep entries, walkways, and driveways usable; cone or warn wet/work areas; respect pets, gates, and posted instructions.
6. Communicate presence and timing — Let the customer or site contact know you've arrived, the expected duration, and any access you need (interior, gates, alarm).
7. Work tidy and contained — Keep hoses, cords, and gear controlled; don't block fire exits or create trip hazards; manage water per the property-protection SOP.
8. Close out and report — Pack out all equipment, leave the site as found or better, and report any incident, near-miss, or hazard per the safety plan.

Quality check before you finish

• Arrived in uniform/ID with correct equipment and work order reviewed
• Site hazard scan completed and worked around per the safety plan
• Safety rulings deferred to OSHA, IWCA I-14.1, and the safety plan
• Out-of-scope (rope/suspended/high-rise) work identified and refused
• Entries, walkways, and public access kept usable and safe
• Site left as-found-or-better; incidents/near-misses reported

This is a free, source-anchored standard operating procedure (SOP) you can print and hand to staff. It documents the work sequence for a Window Cleaning business — not safety or regulatory rulings, which defer to the cited authorities, the applicable code, and your own health-and-safety plan. Open the tool above to print it, toggle ink-saver, or (with a free ToolFluency Business account) edit it to match your own workflow.

Sources

• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (osha.gov)
• International Window Cleaning Association — ANSI/IWCA I-14.1 (iwca.org)
• American National Standards Institute (ANSI) (ansi.org)