Workplace Health And Safety Risks

Rating workplace health and safety risks on a likelihood and consequence matrix is standard practice and it has a weakness worth understanding before you rely on the numbers.

Two entirely different risks can produce the same score. A near-certain minor injury and a remote fatality can both land on the same colour, and a register sorted by score will treat them as equivalent. They are not, and no reasonable person would allocate the same response to each.

A second problem is consistency. Ask three managers to rate the same hazard and you will usually get three answers, because likelihood is being estimated rather than measured.

The practical fix is not to abandon the matrix. It is to treat any risk with a catastrophic consequence separately, regardless of its score, and to have more than one person rate anything significant.

Safe Work Australia publishes the risk management code. 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.