Risk Assessment

A risk assessment is a vital element of protecting your employees along with your enterprise, together with complying with the law. It helps you focus on the risks that actually matter in your workplace - those with the possibility to do harm. In many cases, very simple methods can easily control risks, such as, making sure spillages are cleared up quickly so folks don't slip or filing cabinet drawers kept closed to make sure that people do not fall. For almost all, this means very simple, low cost and highly effective measures to ensure your most valuable asset - your employees - is protected.

A risk assessment is simply a cautious study of what, in your work, might cause injury to people, to enable you to weigh up if you have taken sufficient safeguards or ought to do more in order to avoid harm. Workers among others have a right to be protected from harm caused by a failure to consider sensible control measures.

The law doesn't require that you remove all risk, however you are recommended to protect individuals so far as is ‘reasonably practicable’. This article tells you how to reach that goal with minimum difficulty.

This is not the only way to perform a risk assessment, there are more methods that work well, specifically for more complicated . risks and circumstances. Having said that, we believe this approach is the most straightforward for the majority of businesses.

Easy methods to assess the risks inside your place of work

Follow the five stages in stated below. Five steps to risk assessment .

1. Identify the dangers
2. Decide who can be injured and exactly how
3. Assess the risks and choose preventative measure
4. Record your conclusions and implement them
5. Review your assessment and revise if necessary

Don’t overcomplicate the process. In lots of organizations, the risks are well understood and the essential control measures are really easy to apply. You most likely already know whether, as an example, you have staff members who shift heavy loads therefore could hurt their backs, or where individuals are more than likely to slip or trip. If so, make sure that you take sensible safeguards in order to avoid harm.

For those who run a small organisation and you are confident you understand what’s required, you can do the assessment by yourself. You don’t really need to be a health and safety expert.

If you are employed in a more substantial organisation, you might ask a health and safety professional to assist you. If you're not assured, get the aid of someone that is experienced. In every case, you should ensure that you involve your staff or their representatives in the operation. They will have practical information about how exactly the work is done that can make your assessment of the risk more detailed and effective. But remember, you're responsible for seeing that the assessment is carried out adequately.

When considering your risk assessment, remember:

a hazard is anything that could cause harm, such as chemical compounds, electricity, working from ladders, an open cabinet.
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.