A risk assessment is an important step in protecting your workers and your business, as well as complying with the law. It helps you focus on the risks that really matter in the workplace – the ones with the potential to cause real harm.

In many instances, straightforward measures can readily control risks, for example ensuring spillages are cleaned up promptly so people do not slip, or cabinet drawers are kept closed to ensure people do not trip. For most, according to the Health and Safety Commission, the British equivalent to OSHA, that means simple, cheap and effective measures to ensure your most valuable asset — your workforce — is protected. 

You cannot be expected to eliminate all risk, but you are required to protect people as far as “reasonably practicable,” according to the HSC.  

This is not the only way to do a risk assessment, there are other methods particularly for more complex risks and circumstances. However, the HSC believes this businesses are legally required to assess method is the most straightforward for the risks in their workplace so they can most organizations.  

What is risk assessment? 

A risk assessment is simply a careful examination of what in your work could cause harm to people, so that you can determine whether you have taken enough precautions or should do more to prevent harm. Workers and others -have a right to be protected from harm caused by a failure to take reasonable control measures. 

This guide tells you how to achieve that with a minimum of fuss. Accidents and ill health can ruin lives and affect your business, too, if output that is lost, machinery is damaged, insurance work well, costs increase or you have to go to court. In Great Britain and the United States, put in place a plan to control the risks.  To assess the risks in your workplace, use the following five steps:
Step 1: Identify the hazards;
Step 2: Decide who might be harmed and how;
Step 3: Evaluate the risks and decide on precaution;
Step 4: Record your findings and imple­ment them; and
Step 5: Review your assessment and up­date if necessary.

The HSC suggests that you don’t overcomplicate the process. In many or­ganizations, the risks are well known and the necessary control measures are easy to apply. You probably already know whether, for example, you have employees who move heavy loads and so could harm their backs, or where peo­ple are most likely to slip or trip. If so, check that you have taken reasonable precautions to avoid injury.

If you run a small organization and are confident you understand what’s in­volved, you can do the assessment yourself. You don’t have to be a health and safety expert.

If you work in a larger organization, you could ask a health and safety advisor to help you. If you are not confident, get help from someone who is competent.

In all cases, you should make sure that you involve your staff or their represen­tatives in the process. They will have useful information about how the work is done that will make your assessment of the risk more thorough and effective.

“Nowhere is there more valuable knowledge about a company’s opera­tions, about what works efficiently and what does not, than in the minds of the people who drive the business every day,” according to the environmental, health and safety professionals at Knowledge Management Innovations, a Mississauga, ON-based provider of software and solutions that help control environmental impact, increase regula­tory compliance, improve operations and reduce corporate risk. “A company’s greatest untapped resource can be the ideas, opinions, experiences and collec­tive knowledge of its staff.”

Effectively capturing and leveraging this knowledge to improve process effi­ciency, quality, safety and regulatory compliance can help companies do the following:

• Reduce facility risk from missed compliance deadlines;

• Increased knowledge retention during employee turnover; and

• Ease management of multi-site com­pliance issues. When conducting a risk assessment, the

HSC advises the following:

• A hazard is anything that may cause harm, such as chemicals, electricity, working from ladders, an open drawer etc;

• The risk is the chance, high or low, that somebody could be harmed by these and other hazards, together with an indica­tion of how serious the harm could be.  

Some frequently asked questions:

What if the work I do tends to vary a lot, or I (or my employees) move from one site to another?

Identify the hazards you can rea­sonably expect and assess the risks from them. This general assessment should stand you in good stead for the majority of your work. Where you do take on work or a new site that is different, cover any new or different hazards with a specific assessment. You do not have to start from scratch

each time.

What if I share a workplace?

Tell the other employers and self-employed people there about any risks your work could cause them, and what pre­cautions you are taking. Also, think about the risks to your own workforce from those who share your workplace.

Do my employees have responsibilities?

Yes. Employees have legal responsi­bilities to cooperate with their employer’s efforts to improve health and safety (e.g. they must wear protective equipment when it is provided), and to look out for each other.

What if one of my employee’s cir­cumstances change?

You’ll need to look again at the risk as­sessment. You are required to carry out a specific risk assessment for new or expec­tant mothers, as some tasks (heavy lifting or work with chemicals for example) may not be appropriate.

If an employee develops a disability then you are required to make reasonable adjustments. People returning to work fol­lowing major surgery may also have par­ticular requirements. If you put your mind to it, you can almost always find a way forward that works for you and your em­ployees.

What if I have already assessed some of the risks?

If, for example, you use hazardous chemicals and you have already assessed the risks to health and the precautions you need to take under the applicable regulations, you can consider them ‘checked’ and move on.

 Principles of sensible risk management Sensible risk management is about:

• Ensuring that workers and the public are properly protected;

• Providing overall benefit to society by balancing benefits and risks, with a fo­cus on reducing real risks – both those which arise more often and those with serious consequences;

• Enabling innovation and learning not stifling them;

• Ensuring that those who create risks manage them responsibly and under­

 stand that failure to manage real risks responsibly is likely to lead to robust action; and

• Enabling individuals to understand that as well as the right to protection, they also have to exercise responsibility.  

Sensible risk management is not about:

• Creating a totally risk free society;

• Generating useless paperwork moun­tains;

• Scaring people by exaggerating or publicizing trivial risks;

• Stopping important recreational and learning activities for individuals where the risks are managed;

• Reducing protection of people from risks that cause real harm and suffering. Risk management involves you, the em­ployer, looking at the risks that arise in the workplace and then putting sensible health and safety measures in place to control them. By doing this you can pro­tect your most valuable asset, your em­ployees, as well as members of the public from harm. FSM