How to assess the risks in your workplace
Identify the hazards
- Walk around your workplace and look at what could reasonably be a hazard or could cause harm. e.g. Office Wires not hidden.
- Ask your staff what they think the hazards could be. They may have noticed things that are not immediately obvious to you because there working in the environment.
- If you're a member of a trade association, contact them. Many produce very helpful guidance.
- Check manufacturers’ instructions, data sheets for chemicals and equipment as they can be very helpful in spelling out the hazards and putting them in their true perspective.
- Have a look back at your accident and ill-health records. Looking at past accidents often help to identify the less obvious hazards.
- Remember to think about long-term hazards to health (eg high levels of noise or exposure to harmful substances) as well as safety hazards.
Decide who might be harmed and how
For each hazard you need to be clear about who might be harmed. It will help you identify the best way of managing the risk. That doesn’t mean listing everyone by name, but rather identifying groups of people (eg ‘staff working on the tills’ or ‘staff working the stock room’).
- Some workers have particular requirements, eg new or expectant mothers and people with disabilities may be at particular risk. Extra thought will be needed for some hazards.
- Cleaners, visitors etc... who may not be in the workplace all the time.
- Members of the public, if they could be hurt by your activities.
- If you share your workplace, you will need to think about how your work affects others present, as well as how their work affects your staff and visitors.
- When you think you have thought about everyone ask your staff if they can think of anyone you may have missed.
Evaluate the risks and decide on precaution
After spotting the hazards/potential hazards, you then have to decide what to do about them. The law requires you to do everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect people from harm.
There are many sources of good practice - Contact HSE on 0845 345 0055, Workplace Health Connect on el: 0845 609 6006 or call Oasys TSS on 0845 004 1058 for Risk Management Password.
When controlling risks, apply the principles below, if possible in the following order:
- try a less risky option (eg switch to using a less hazardous chemical).
- prevent access to the hazard (eg by guarding).
- organise work to reduce exposure to the hazard (eg put barriers between pedestrians and traffic).
- issue personal protective equipment (eg clothing, footwear, goggles etc).
- provide welfare facilities (eg first aid and washing facilities for removal of contamination).
Involve staff, so that you can be sure that what you propose to do will work in practice and won’t introduce any new hazards. Always remember everything can be improved, once you think you have sorted don't forget about it, go back in a few months time and see if it is stil having the same positive effect.
Record your findings and implement them
Putting the results of your risk assessment into practice will make a difference when looking after people and your business. Writing down the results of your risk assessment, and sharing them with your staff, encourages you to do this. If you have fewer than 5 members of staff you do not have to write anything down, though it is useful so that you can review it at a later date. E.g if something changes or the same hazard appears again but for different section you can see what procedure you did to help prevent this.
When writing down your results, it is recommened to keep it simple. E.g. Tripping over rubbish: bins provided - staff instructed & weekly housekeeping checks.
Not every risk assessment is going to be perfect, but it must be suitable and sufficient. But you need to be able to show that:
- a proper check was made.
- you asked who might be affected.
- you dealt with all the obvious significant hazards, taking into account the number of people who could be involved.
- the precautions are reasonable, and the remaining risk is low.
- you involved your staff or their representatives in the process.
Review your assessment and update if necessary
Few workplaces stay the same. Sooner or later, you will bring in new equipment, substances and procedures that could lead to new hazards. It makes sense therefore, to review what you are doing on an ongoing basis. Every year or so formally review where you are to make sure you are still improving, or at least not sliding back.
Look at your risk assessment recordings again. Have there been any changes? Are there improvements you still need to make? Have your workers spotted a problem? Have you learnt anything from accidents or near misses? Make sure your risk assessment stays up to date.
|