What is workplace risk assessment?
Risk Assessment
The risk assessment process is essential in hazard elimination. The purpose is to evaluate the work for hazards and ensure they are controlled prior to work execution.
What is a hazard?
A hazard is a condition or behaviour present at the worksite that has the potential to cause incident or injury.
What is hazard ranking?
The ranking of the hazard is important to evaluate the level of risk involved in completing that task with the existing hazard present and then again ranking once the hazard is mitigated. The hazard is ranked based on probability of the hazard causing an incident and the severity of injury that occurs at a determined frequency.
How do you assess risks?
There are numerous methods to assess workplace risks. Depending on your organization or project location, different terminology is utilized. Some methods include;
- Overall Project Risk Assessment – this includes an assessment of the entire job to be completed in numerous steps. It’s often very lengthy and includes references to work practices and procedures.
- Job Hazard Assessment – Specific tasks that are new, require numerous trades or involve high risk work are assessed using a JHA. This method is an overall assessment of that job that is referenced for the entire length of that job.
- Field Level Risk Assessment – These are daily or per task assessments completed by the individual worker (sometimes numerous workers complete one FLRA)
We are going to further describe each risk assessment method and the process of completing these effectively over the course of our next few articles. Check back again tomorrow for more!
