A Guide to Risk Assessment

Risk assessment is crucial to avoid potential hazards and implement safety procedures.
While work related fatalities and injuries have dropped drastically in recent years.
In order to prevent incidents from occurring it’s up to everyone involved to identify
potential hazards. When it comes to heights and the application of roof safety systems
it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

From workers standpoint a fall could mean a devastating injury or worse, from an employer’s
perspective it could mean a costly lawsuit and a drop in productivity. While the designated
OH&S representative should be able to identify potential hazards, everyone on site should be
capable of identifying risk. Risk assessment is a relatively simple, yet essential component
of working on a potentially dangerous site. Below are the essential steps to take for effective
risk assessment.
Risk management

The appropriate control measures for a particular system of work
are generally determined by individual job factors. Conducting a risk
assessment identifies these.
Employers and self-employed persons must identify any foreseeable
hazards, assess their risks and take action to eliminate or control them.
Risk management is a regulatory requirement.
The risk management process is a problem solving process that
when taken step-by-step, will lead to informed decisions about how
best to avoid or control the impact of risks. You must involve your
workers when undertaking risk management. This is a regulatory
requirement. There are four basic steps:
Step 1: Identify the problem (hazard identification).
Step 2: Determine how serious a problem it is (assess the risks).
Step 3: Decide what needs to be done to solve the problem
(eliminate or control risks).
Step 4: Review the risk assessment process and control measures to
ensure risks are still adequately addressed.

A workers rights: What to do if your workplace isn’t safe

Providing and maintaining a safe working environment is the responsibility of all involved.
From the common labourer to the corporate staff, it takes everyone to ensure that
a workplace is safe and that employees are happy. Government regulations and strict
OH&S policies have drastically reduced the amount of workplace accidents.
Every business operating in a potentially hazardous environment must legally comply
with set standards of worker protection. Unfortunately there are numerous incidents
every year were safety is ignored, with financial or time constraints taking priority.
Ignoring hazards is incredibly dangerous, it is essential to provide a safe working environment.
In theory employees have the right to refuse to work in dangerous environments absent of safety systems.
In reality many employees, concerned about job security will not exercise their right of refusal
for fear of repercussions. Being expected to work in an unsafe environment without instituted
safety policy is unacceptable and there is a process employees can follow if they feel that
safety standards are inadequate.