Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment for Beginners

Hazard - What is a Hazard?

A hazard is anything or any, situation, environment or behaviour that has the potential to cause injury, ill health, or damage to person(s), property or the environment. Anything can be a hazard depending on its current state. For example,

Types of hazards

There are majorly six (6) different types of hazards, they include:

Physical hazard: A physical hazard is an agent, factor or circumstance that can cause harm with or without contact. Examples are: Slippery floors, objects in walkways, unsafe or misused machinery, excessive noise, poor lighting, fire, etc.

Chemical hazards: A chemical hazard is a type of occupational hazard caused by exposure to chemicals in the workplace. Exposure to chemicals in the workplace can cause acute or chronic detrimental health effects. Examples include: Gases, dusts, fumes, vapours and liquids.

Ergonomic hazards: Ergonomic hazards are physical conditions that may pose risk of injury to the musculoskeletal system, such as the muscles or ligaments of the lower back, tendons or nerves of the hands/wrists, or bones surrounding the knees, resulting in a musculoskeletal disorder. These include poor design of equipment, workstation design, (postural) or workflow, manual handling, repetitive movement, etc.

Biological hazards: Biological hazards are a biological substance that pose threat to the health of living organisms, primarily humans. They include pathogenic micro-organisms, viruses, toxins (from biological sources), spores, fungi and bio-active substances.

Psychological hazard: A psychological hazard is any occupational hazard that affects the psychological and physical well-being of workers, including their ability to participate in a work environment among other people.

Environmental hazards: An environmental hazard is a substance, a state or an event which has the potential to threaten the surrounding natural environment / or adversely affect people’s health, including pollution and natural disasters such as storms and earthquakes.

Risk - What is Risk?

A risk can be defined as the probability a hazard materializing or simply the effect of uncertainty

What is a risk assessment?

A risk assessment is a systematic process performed by a competent person which involves identifying, analysing, and controlling hazards and risks present in a situation or a place. A risk assessment is an examination of a workplace environment where given tasks are undertaken. In short, the goal of the risk assessment is to highlight any hazards, and outline steps to prevent harm. Often a hazard can be removed completely, however, where this is not possible, then certain control measures should be implemented.

Tools and Techniques for Risk Assessment

The four common risk assessment tools are: risk matrix, decision tree, failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) or failure mode, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) and bowtie model. Other risk assessment techniques include what-if analysis, failure tree analysis, and hazard operability analysis.

Why do we do a hazard identification and risk assessment?

A risk assessment should be undertaken to ensure that all groups of people including but not limited to employees, contractors, and members of the public are protected from risk of injury or ill health.

Hazard identification and risk assessments form the basis of proactive safety and prevention. The two safety jobs combine to mitigate and prevent the chances that incidents occur - and ensure that assets, equipment and people are kept as safe as possible.

Hazard identification and risk assessments are the first line of defence (and hopefully the only line needed) to prevent project incidents, and are followed by hazard reports, incident reports and incident investigations when and where required.

It is a legal requirement to assess the health and safety risks arising from work undertaken.

The purpose of the assessment is to identify what needs to be done to control health and safety risks.

How to Conduct a Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment

The following is a proven method for carrying out a hazard identification and risk assessment at a workplace or for a project.

1. Prepare Method Statement - Classify the work activities

This involves identifying the processes, and tasks to be performed, preparing a list of work activities (step-by-step) and grouping them in a rational way including both routine (day-to-day) work as well as non-routine (infrequent) work.

2. Identify the hazards (environment, occupational health and safety hazards for each activity)

Hazard identification includes looking around the workplace and thinking about what may cause harm (hazards). For example:

·      how people work and how plant and equipment are used

·      what chemicals and substances are used

·      what safe or unsafe work practices exist

·      the general state of the premises

Other activities to do are looking back at accident/incident records to help identify less obvious hazards, considering non-routine operations, such as maintenance, cleaning or changes in production cycles.

Think about hazards to health, such as manual handling, use of chemicals and causes of work-related stress.

Carry out regular safety inspections or walkthroughs and audits of the workplace

Monitor, measure and test the work environment for example for air, water, and soil quality, noise exposure among others.

3. Assess the risks presented by the hazards and prioritize them

Identify what risks each hazard presents in each step. This includes deciding who/what and how people/environment might be harmed and how serious it could be e.g., injuries to employees, contractors, visitors or members of the public. Environmental damages may include spillage, emissions, waste generation and discharges.

Assess the raw risks (risk without controls) and rank/prioritize the level of risk according to a predefined risk assessment matrix (RAM) i.e., decide how likely it is that someone/ environment could be harmed, the severity/impact if it occurs. The raw risk therefore is got as product of probability and impact. (R = PI).

Sample RAM is below

Likelihood/ Probability		Very Likely	Likely	Unlikely	Highly Unlikely
Impact/ Consequences	Fatality	High	High	High	Medium
	Major Injuries	High	High	Medium	Medium
	Minor Injuries	High	Medium	Medium	Low
	Negligible Injuries	Medium	Medium	Low	Low

Identify the current or existing controls to reduce the risk

Assess the residual risk (risk after controls are applied) and rate/rank as per the matrix to evaluate how effective the are at reducing the risk to as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP)

4. Controlling the risks

Decide what further action is needed to control the residual risks, who needs to carry out the action, and when the action should be completed. If further controls are required, the following hierarchy shall be followed in order of importance:

·     Elimination e.g., redesigning the job

·     Substitution - replacing the materials, machinery or process

·     Engineering controls - organising the work to reduce exposure to the materials, machinery or process

·     Administrative controls - identifying and implementing practical measures needed to work safely such as training, consequence management, posters and signages etc.

·     Providing personal protective equipment and making sure workers wear it

5. Record the significant findings

Significant findings are recorded and a hazard and risk assessment register/ form, including.

·     the hazards (things that may cause harm)

·     who might be harmed and how

·     what is being done to control the risks

For a comprehensive customized Risk Register for recording of significant findings, contact SAFE GREEN WAYS or leave us a comment.

6. Review the controls

Controls put in place must be reviewed to ensure they are working. These shall also be reviewed if:

·     they may no longer be effective

·     there are changes in the workplace, that could lead to new risks such as changes to staff, a process, the substances or equipment used.

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Thank you for reading!

Further Reading - Tools and Techniques for Risk Assessment

Read our next posts for a detailed look and understanding of each of the tools that can be employed for risk assessment.