The Importance of Risk Assessments to Avoid Fines
Creating a safer and healthier workplace should be a priority for all organisations, not only do risk assessments form an integral part of an organisations occupational health and safety management plan, they help to:
- Create awareness of hazards and risk
- Identify who may be at risk including employees, visitors and members of the public
- Prevent injuries or illnesses
- Determine if existing control measures are adequate for a particular hazard, or should new controls be implemented
- Prioritise hazards and control measures
- Meet health & safety and environment legal requirements
Organisations should regularly take a thorough look at their workplace to identify potential hazards and risk factors that may negatively impact, causing harm to individuals, assets or the environment to avoid hefty fines.
Take a look at your current work environment and ask yourself…
- What can happen and under what circumstances?
- What are the possible consequences?
- How likely are the possible consequences to occur?
- Is the risk controlled effectively, or is further action required?
After identifying potential hazards and risks, you need to analyse and evaluate how likely and severe the risk is before deciding what measures should be in place to effectively eliminate or control the harm from happening.
Seven simple steps to follow:
- Identify the hazards
- Decide who and or what might be harmed and how
- Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions
- Record and document your findings
- Implement processes and procedures to negate hazards and risk
- Communicate your findings, and ensure they are understood and followed
- Regularly review your risk assessment and update if required
If you still think your organisation doesn’t need to have regular risk assessments, just take a look at these case studies where organisations received hefty fines for not having sufficient risk assessments in place.
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