None of us want things to go wrong in our business or personal lives, and yet they do.

Risk assessments are a fairly recent process to monitor and eliminate accidents, injuries, and death across all sectors – from education to offshore oil and gas fields.

They’re something we specialise in formulating at HSEQ-360 for the renewable and offshore energy sectors.

Firstly though, we think it’s worth defining the 5 principles of Risk Assessment that are commonly used by ROSPA and the HSE. These are:

Step 1: Identify the hazards.

Step 2: Decide who might be harmed and how.

Step 3: Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions.

Step 4: Record your findings and implement them.

Step 5: Review your risk assessment and update if necessary.

Each one is multi-faceted and worth examining in greater depth.

1. Hazards

These can be physical, mental, chemical, or biological. Sometimes, a workplace can contain elements of all four and anything that may cause harm is a hazard.

2. Who may be harmed

This involves auditing and identification of a company’s employees, sub-contracted staff, customers, visitors, and members of the public. Often a worker does not simply complete one task per shift in one place but will move around and change jobs. This needs to be considered.

3. Evaluate risks

How likely is it that a hazard can cause harm? If it’s highly likely, risks need to be reduced to a low level. You should classify risks as high, medium, or low.

4. Record-keeping

Notes should be made and stored securely, along with any actions taken to mitigate against risks and hazards. It’s important that this is used in later risk assessment to inform best practices.

5. Review

Line managers, managers, supervisors need to apply safe working practices and consider new pressures, like challenging work targets or installation of new machinery.

In our specialist field of offshore support, we are well served by the government’s own Health and Safety Executive, which you can read here.

The offshore industry is regarded as well regulated across the UK and other countries, with a proven formula of risk matrices in Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Assessments.

Moreover, risk assessments are often further defined as: Generic, Site-Specific and Dynamic by Chas.

Generic ones are, by definition, more general and can often be defined in risk assessment templates to reduce duplication and increased workloads.

Site-specific are used for a specific activity in a specific location and are regarded as the most important of risk assessments. They need to be detailed and thorough to keep your workforce and public safe from harm, to protect your business from “the legal liability and reputational damage that comes with health and safety breaches. “

Risk assessments can be a complex process.

When formulating them, it is always advisable to include the input from your workforce, who will often identify hazards and solutions.

HSEQ-360 are also experts in this field and, to discuss risk assessments with us, contact us today: info@hseq-360.co.uk