Do You Make These Four Common Risk Assessment Mistakes?

You MUST identify hazards and assess risks in your company. It’s a legal requirement! You must compile a comprehensive risk assessment of your workplace. By doing this you can better protect your employees from health and safety hazards, and save yourself from a R100 000 fine, two years in jail or both!

Do You Make these Four Common Mistakes?

By failing to draft a complete risk assessment, you run the risk of:

Mistake #1: Failing to quickly identify the impacts on the health status of your employees due to task-related exposures in your workplace.
Mistake #2: Failing to facilitate prompt, early corrective and preventative action.
Mistake #3: Failing to give direction and enhance the Occupational Health Programme in place on site.
Mistake #4: Failing to streamline your Occupational Health and Safety Programme according to the assessment, and you’ll lose time and money because you’ll need blanket medical surveillance.

By performing a risk assessment, you can benefit your company in the following five ways...

5 Benefits to Doing Risk Assessments

Conducting a hazard identification and risk assessment process (HIRA) will help you:

1. Recognise and control hazards and exposures in the workplace.
2. Create awareness among employees. Use it as a training tool as well.
3. Set risk management standards, based on acceptable safe practices and legal requirements.
4. Reduce incidents in the workplace.
5. Save costs by being proactive instead of reactive.

FACT: Most incidents in your workplace will occur because you have insufficient management controls in place.

You can prevent the majority of incidents in the workplace (and the penalties you’ll receive for failing to protect your employees) by implementing risk management systems like:

• Training
• Inspections
• Work procedures
• Employee fitness
• Planned maintenance of equipment and structures
• Ensuring sufficient and competent supervision

Be proactive! It’s more cost-effective to complete an HIRA process and implement a risk management system than to have an incident on site and only then create one retrospectively!

Now that we’ve shown you the benefits of implementing a hazard identification and risk assessment process, you can begin...

4 Types of Risk Assessments

Type #1: Baseline assessment
Type #2: Generic assessment
Type #3: Continuous assessment
Type #4: Specialised assessments

Once you’ve decided on which risk assessment to perform, you’ll need to decide which model you’ll employ. In the field of hazard identification and risk assessment there are several methods available for determining risk in the workplace. These models each have a specific application and you’ll use them to achieve specific objectives.

For the NINE risk assessment models you can follow, read R01: Risk assessments in your Health and Safety Advisor Loose Leaf. It will explain these nine models as well as other essential tips for compiling a fool-proof risk assessment.

With the Health and Safety Advisor loose leaf service you’ll also have access to:

• Risk assessments: Identifying hazards in the workplace
• Risk assessment process. This includes:

• Risk assessment: Hazardous chemical substances
• Risk assessment: Occupational Health Risk Profile

The Health and Safety Advisor also includes Chapters on:

• Employee Obligations: 3 Tips to get your employees to comply with health and safety laws
• Employer Obligations: Your 1 527 health and safety duties as an employer
• Incidents: Is your workplace a death trap that can cost lives and your business R795 000?
• Inspections: Are you ready for your Health and Safety Inspection?
  
• Plus more...