6. RISK ASSESSMENT
6. Risk Assessment
Risk assessment is identifying dangers
and stress in your workplace and estimating
their affect. Risk assessment is used
to plan and prioritize accidents prevention
measures.
According to Occupational Health and
Safety Act the employer must analyze
and identify the hazards and risk factors
caused by the work, working premises
or other aspects of the working environ-
ment and working conditions. The identified
dangers and risks must be eliminated
or the risk level needs to be minimized.
The consequences of the hazards
and risk factors to the employees’ safety
and health have to be assessed. Risk
assessment should be done in advance at
the planning stage, when it is easier and
cheaper to carry out the improvements.
Planning of risk assessment
Risk assessment starts with planning. When planning, the goal and schedule of the
assessment will be defined, an assessment team chosen, initial data collected, and
the method for risk assessment chosen. When putting the team together, it is good to
choose team members that are capable of making decisions, know their work area,
and can implement what has been decided. A team leader needs to be chosen. He
is responsible for coordination of the assessment process. At the planning stage it is
good to define the object of the assessment, i.e. based on the jobs, premises, departments,
or workshops. Before starting the assessment process it is important to arrange
training for the assessment team.
Everyone should identify hazards associated
with their work and make a personal
risk assessment on a daily basis before
starting work. It doesn’t take much
time. Ask yourself several questions. Do I
have the necessary instructions, enough
knowledge and skills, proper work tools?
Can anything go wrong? If yes then how
and what consequences it can lead to?
How to avoid damage? Decision to start
work or suspend work until the safe performance
is insured can be based on risk
assessment.
There are several different methods and
programs that can be used for systematic
risk assessment. This safety manual
presents one simple model of risk assess-
ment that could be used by a company.
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