It is the moral and legal duty of employers to ensure that all employees and members of the public are protected from any potential harm or illness resulting from the company’s operations. Therefore, in order to implement control measures, risks must be identified and evaluated in each workplace. Risk assessments are an essential component of risk management.
The process of conducting risk assessments can assist you in determining potential dangers, taking into account the risks they pose, and making effective plans to mitigate or eliminate those dangers. The findings of the risk assessment can then be discussed and communicated with employees as well as contractors, assisting you in ensuring that your workers are aware of the risks they should take to minimize risks during work activities. Clients, principal contractors, investors, and external auditors can all see evidence of your compliance with health and safety regulations through risk assessments.
It is required by law for businesses with five or more employees to conduct and record risk assessments. Even if you are not legally required to do so, it is still worthwhile to complete a risk assessment because of the numerous advantages it offers, even for smaller businesses.
This article is a great place to start if you don’t know much about risk assessments but are interested in learning how to conduct one.
What is meant by “Risk Assessment”?
An examination of work activities is called a risk assessment. The goal is to find relevant hazards that could harm workers, visitors to the site, or members of the general public. Anything from potentially hazardous activities like working at heights, working with or around mobile plant, operating machinery, or manual handling operations to the use of hazardous substances and psychological strain like stress can be considered hazards.
After hazards have been identified, you will need to think about the dangers they pose; who might be affected, how likely the risk is, and how they might harm someone. After that, you can put in place control measures that are proportional to the likelihood and severity of the risk.
The risk assessment should be written up and made available to employees at all levels of your business after it is finished. As a result, the above procedure and the resulting document containing the assessment’s findings are referred to as risk assessments.
How to Conduct a Risk Assessment
The five steps of conducting a risk assessment can be used to examine and evaluate workplace hazards and risks:
1. Identify the hazards
2. Identify who can be harmed and how
3. Assess the risks and take steps to reduce them.
4. Make a record of your findings.
5. On a regular basis, review the risk assessment.
You could begin by simply walking around the workplace and taking notes of any visible hazards you see in order to identify risks. But you’ll also have to think about threats that aren’t obvious or easy to spot. Examining incident / accident records to see if there are any patterns, is a good way to identify risks that are not immediately apparent. Examine the instruction manuals that come with workplace equipment. Typically, these manuals will include any specifics about risks that you should be aware of. The best way to find hazards is to talk to your employees because they will often have a clearer idea of the risks they face every day and how to reduce them.
A risk assessment template can speed up and simplify the process of recording your risk assessment findings. Risk assessments from other businesses should not be used. This is due to the fact that every workplace and work activity is unique and carries a variety of risks and hazards. You wouldn’t be able to determine the most effective health and safety measures for your particular activity or workplace if you used someone else’s or “cookie cutter”assessment.
Consequently, your risk assessments must be specific to the activity or workplace, but this does not mean that the work is finished once the risk assessment is created. You will need to look over the document on a regular basis, at least once a year or whenever the activity or workplace changes. This is because your risk assessment loses relevance every time the activity or work environment changes, such as when you introduce new procedures or equipment or change your staff. Your risk assessment is one of the most frequently consulted documents regarding your company’s health and safety procedures. If you want it to assist you in maintaining excellent standards throughout your organization, it needs to be kept current.
We can help you with this process, support in delivering risk assessments is one of the most satisfying services we offer and can really make the difference in landing Health and Safety advice and the importance of it, within your individual business. Drop us a message or visit the website, advice is only a phone call away!