How to assess the risks in your workplace:

How to assess the risks in your workplace:

Follow the five steps

 Step 1 Identify the hazards

 First you need to work out how people could be harmed. When you work in a place every day it is easy to overlook some hazards, so here are some tips to help you identify the ones that matter:

■ Walk around your workplace and look at what could reasonably be expected to cause harm.

■ Ask your employees or their representatives what they think. They may have noticed things that are not immediately obvious to you.

■ get some information of how to assess the risks from workplace from the best organization which had a wide experience, such as HSE organization.

  ■ Have a look back at your accident and ill-health records – these often help to identify the less obvious hazards.

■ Remember to think about long-term hazards to health (e.g. high levels of noise or exposure to harmful substances) as well as safety hazards.

Step 2 Decide who might be harmed and how

For each hazard you need to be clear about who might be harmed; it will help you identify the best way of managing the risk. That does not mean listing everyone by name, but rather identifying groups of people. In each case, identify how they might be harmed, in example, what type of injury or ill health might occur. For example, ‘shelf stackers may suffer back injury from repeated lifting of boxes. 

Step 3 Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions

Having spotted the hazards, you then have to decide what to do about them. The law requires you to do everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect people from harm. You can work this out for yourself, but the easiest way is to compare what you are doing with good practice. So first, look at what you are already doing, think about what controls you have in place and how the work is organised. Then compare this with the good practice and see if there is more you should be doing to bring yourself up to standard. 

Step 4 Record your findings and implement them

Putting the results of your risk assessment into practice will make a difference when looking after people and your business. Writing down the results of your risk assessment, and sharing them with your staff, encourages you to do this. If you have fewer than five employees you do not have to write anything down, though it is useful so that you can review it at a later date if, for example, something changes.

Step 5 Review your risk assessment and update if necessary

Few workplaces stay the same. Sooner or later, you will bring in new equipment, substances and procedures that could lead to new hazards. It makes sense, therefore, to review what you are doing on an ongoing basis. Every year or so formally review where you are, to make sure you are still improving, or at least not sliding back. Look at your risk assessment again. Have there been any changes? Are there improvements you still need to make? Have your workers spotted a problem? Have you learnt anything from accidents or near misses? Make sure your risk assessment stays up to date.
 

Risk assessment

A risk assessment is an important step in protecting your workers and your business, as well as complying with the law. It helps you focus on the risks that really matter in your workplace – the ones with the potential to cause real harm. In many instances, straightforward measures can readily control risks, for example ensuring spillages are cleaned up promptly so people do not slip, or cupboard drawers are kept closed to ensure people do not trip. For most, that means simple, cheap and effective measures to ensure your most valuable asset – your workforce – is protected. The law does not expect you to eliminate all risk, but you are required to protect people as far as ‘reasonably practicable’. This guide tells you how to achieve that with a minimum of fuss. This is not the only way to do a risk assessment, there are other methods that work well, particularly for more complex risks and circumstances. However, we believe this method is the most straightforward for most organisations.

The State of Workplace Health and Safety in New Zealand

The current trends in the country indicate that it has one chance to make substantive impact on workplace safety and health. Fortunately, the authorities are ready and up to the tasks and are doing all is possible to take this chance and exploit it. At the forefront are the central government and its agencies, which have provided funding, set various targets and reviewed the health and safety system to keep it abreast with international standards (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, 2012). For instance, the government has provided additional health and safety funding to the tune of $37 million over four years with the aim of strengthening and transforming the approaches to the regulation of workplace safety and to increase the capacity and number of frontline health and safety inspectors (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, 2012). This funding has also helped in supporting targeted health and safety initiatives. These funds have really become handy in assisting the government to achieve its goal of reducing workplace serious accidents and harms by 25% by the year 2020 and by 10% by 2016 (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, 2012). The government has also established an independent task force to review its health and safety system and its capacity to remain relevant and serve its purpose. Further, the task force has the mandate to make recommendations on any areas that require improvements.

Recommendations

          Since occupational safety and health is concern for the ever-growing automotive industry, workshop owners and employees should make it their core objective to understand all the health and safety hazards within their workplace and identify the most appropriate strategies by which to curb them. Especially, workers should understand that safety and health hazards are any actions or substances that may cause them injuries. Health and safety hazards include infectious diseases, dangerous chemicals, harmful gases and unprotected, subserviced and faulty machines and plants. A thorough understanding of these health and safety hazards would go a long way in enabling workers and managers of automotive workshops in Saudi Arabia to install and implement the right procedures for emergency situations.