Work Health And Safety Risks

Managing work health and safety risks follows a four-step process, and the fourth is the one almost everyone skips.

Identify. Find what could cause harm. Inspections, incident and near miss data, and asking the people doing the work.

Assess. Understand the nature of the harm, how serious it could be, and how likely.

Control. Apply the hierarchy of control. Eliminate first, then substitute, isolate or engineer, then administrative controls and personal protective equipment last.

Review. Check the control worked, and revisit it after an incident, a change to the work, or new information.

Registers full of controls nobody has tested are common. A control that has never failed is untested rather than proven, and the review step is what tells you which.

Safe Work Australia publishes the model code on risk management. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations vary by state and territory.

See Sentrient’s risk management system and work health and safety course.