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A Practical Approach to Health and Safety
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Risk Assessments – It’s cheaper to eliminate your hazards today
How to assess the risks in your workplace:
STEP 1: Look for the hazards - If you are doing the assessment yourself, walk around your workplace and look afresh at what could reasonably be expected to cause harm. Ask your employees or their representatives what they think, they may have noticed things which are not immediately obvious. (Make a List)
STEP 2: Decide who might be harmed and how - Don’t forget: young workers, trainees, new and expectant mothers, etc who may be at particular risk. Cleaners, visitors, contractors, maintenance workers, etc who may not be in the workplace all the time. Members of the public, or people you share your workplace with, if there is a chance they could be hurt by your activities.
STEP 3: Evaluate the risks and decide whether the existing precautions are adequate or whether more should be done - Consider how likely it is that each hazard could cause harm. This will determine whether or not you need to do more to reduce the risk. Even after all precautions have been taken, some risk usually remains. The law says that you must do what is reasonably practicable to keep your workplace safe.
STEP 4: Record your findings - If you have fewer than five employees you do not need to write anything down. If you employ five or more people you must record the significant findings of your assessment. This means writing down the significant hazards and conclusions. You must also tell your employees about your findings.
STEP 5: Review your assessment and revise it if necessary - Sooner or later you will bring in new machines, substances and procedures which could lead to new hazards. If there is any significant change, add to the assessment to take account of the new hazard. (Review your List)
Risk Assessments must be Suitable and Sufficient - not perfect! (They must reflect the type of business you operate)
If you are a small firm and you are confident you understand what’s involved, you can do the assessment yourself. If you are a larger firm, you could ask a responsible employee, safety representative or safety officer to help you. If you are not confident, get help from a competent source.
But remember – the key factor is you (the employer, the director etc) are responsible for seeing that they are adequately carried out and any residual risks are communicated to the workforce.
Basically if you find an unexploded bomb in the cellar you must inform your workforce and you have a duty to implement adequate control measures to protect them from harm as well as anyone affected by your business operations.
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