Risk Assessments Explained and Examples
Risk assessments are more common today than ever before. They govern how businesses operate and mitigate injury or damage. Below are summarized expert perspectives on risk assessments and examples.
Whatever the approach, the more risk assessment forms that are submitted, the more perspective a company has over its everyday risks. Numerous incidents can be prevented with this perspective and understanding.
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Risk Assessments Explained
Risk assessments are how businesses calculate the risk of operations. They are often paired with hazard assessments and controls. A risk assessment is generally comprised of many hazard assessments and precautionary assessments. Together they make up the whole risk assessment and this collection of data gains insight into the risks.
During common risk assessments, companies weigh controls vs hazards and calculate the number of employees exposed to said risk. If it’s a chronic hazard that is unavoidable, the duration of exposure is also considered.
Throughout this process, Enterprises normally cover these stages of risk assessments to ensure they’ve considered all the crucial parameters.
When do Companies Perform a Risk Assessment?
For each company, this will be different, but some elements will remain the same. A risk analysis should be carried out if:
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- A new process is about to begin
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- New hazards have appeared
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- Locations, weather, or conditions have drastically changed
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- New machinery or tools are being implemented
The scope of the risk assessment is another choice that needs to be considered. Often a field-level hazard assessment would suffice if a piece of heavy equipment is going to be introduced to a workplace. This eliminates the requirement for an organization-wide risk assessment.
Stages of a Risk Assessment
The “why” and “when” have been discussed; what about the “how”? There are generally five processes involved in carrying out a risk assessment.
#1 Hazard Identification
It’s crucial to be thorough during the hazard identification stage because this will serve as the framework for the remainder of the risk assessment. It is important to think about potential risks for both the company and the workers. Examples of these risks are:
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- Pinch points are spaces between objects that can crush limbs or extremities. Pinch point should always be considered a large hazard. Many training programs teach employees how to avoid them, but they should be mitigated as well. If there are any that can’t be avoided, they must be considered in the risk assessment.
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- Height is certainly a risk worth considering in assessments. Calculating the risk for heights varies through industries like most hazards. For instance, Ironworkers often erect scaffolding that makes other jobs safer. Yet the risk to the ironworkers themselves is quite high.
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- Chemical hazards and things that can cause damage after chronic exposure are also part of a comprehensive risk assessment.
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- Mental health is also being considered more and more in risk assessments depending on the occupation.
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- Distractions are also considered more and more. There are plenty of assessments that include these due to them being the culprit in recent incident reports.
Speak to everyone you can who is participating in the process to identify these risks. The more information there is, the better you can be prepared for events. Sometimes new workers will approach tasks differently, and this poses a risk for them because their trainer considers them more aware of dangers. The trainer in these circumstances may not mention hazards they consider obvious.
Additionally, “one-off” tasks like maintenance and repairs should be considered in the analysis.
Furthermore, incident reports can highlight past safety concerns that have affected the company, so they can also be a useful source of data for risk assessments.
#2 Affected Staff
The second step in a risk assessment after hazard identification is to determine who would be exposed to the hazards you’ve identified during the previous step. This can involve looking at roles, shifts, and teams, and determining if they are in the area or part of the process.
#3 Record the Risk Assessment
During most risk assessments all stages should be documented in order to learn from past errors and trace the process. However, during phase 4, you should thoroughly document all your findings in the risk assessment.
Things like weather issues, fall risks, and noise hazards should all be considered and recorded in your risk assessment. Like we said before, make sure to note how many will be affected by the risks as well.
#4 Review Precautions and Analyze
You’ll no doubt have precautions in place, so now’s the time to cross-examine them with your hazards and find out if this mitigates them enough.
#5 Risk Evaluation
Stage 5 is the process of comparing an estimated risk to predetermined risk criteria in order to assess the risk’s importance.
Determine the likelihood of each hazard during this phase. After you have the likelihoods, you can prioritize which new precautions are best to implement to mitigate risks. After these precautions have been implemented you can then recalculate your risk.
#6 Risk Control
COHS calls the last phase risk control, and it involves updating anything you require and carefully monitoring your precautions to make sure they themselves don’t introduce other risks.
Examples of a Risk Assessment
There are innumerable examples of risk assessments that could be discussed. One risk assessment example would be identifying trailing extension cords tripping up workers in a busy work zone; another would be discovering chronic illnesses that are developing from long-term exposure to a toxic substance. Here are some of the main categories of risk assessments:
Chemical Substances Risk Assessment
A chemical risk assessment will involve data on the amount and pace at which a substance enters the environment, how it enters the environment, and its chemical characteristics.
It is also taken into account how long it will stay in the ecosystem and whether it is present at levels that could be dangerous to Canadians or the environment.
Combining the aforementioned data allows us to evaluate the substance’s long-term fate in the environment and, as a result, comprehend how exposure occurs or might occur.
The chemical risk assessment will also evaluate all hazards for staff handling the substance.
Vessel Collision Risk Assessment
This study’s determining variables were calculated to determine the risk of vessels colliding with the new rail bridge in Victoria BC.
Sensitivity analyses were carried out to determine the significance of uncertainties for several important input variables, including (a) projected growth rates for vessel traffic, (b) probability of vessel aberrancy accident base rate, (c) tethered tug safety factor, (d) protection provided by the rail bridge (with and without protection), and (e) increasing the steel truss bottom chord (span) resistance strength.
In this risk study, the expected sea level rise and the potential ride-up of ships beginning to run aground close to the piers were taken into account while adjusting the water levels and depths at the bridge piers.
Simplifying Risk Assessments
Businesses have had great success automating and documenting their risk assessments using digital applications.
Risk assessments have been shown to be simpler and more frequently used when team members have access to pre-populated forms on their mobile devices.
Businesses that have used risk assessment tools have discovered that more evaluations are submitted today than using traditional paper methods.
This is a result of how simple it is to autonomously file documents and how simple it is to swiftly write down crucial ideas on a phone.
Whatever the approach, the more risk assessment forms that are submitted, the more perspective a company has over its everyday risks. Numerous incidents can be prevented with this perspective and understanding.
