Five Steps of a Risk Assessment
There are five steps of a risk assessment to include when putting together such a document. It’s important that as a business owner you cover all stages in a risk assessment to ensure you meet your legal and moral responsibilities. The five steps to a risk assessment are:
- Identify the hazards
- Consider who could be harmed
- Evaluate risks and set-up precautions
- Record your findings and implement them
- Review and update
Risk assessments are an essential part of your health and safety protocol. You’re legally obligated to put specific measures and procedures in place to protect your employees, customers, and the general public from harm. Putting together a risk assessment helps satisfy these requirements. If you’ve never created one before, you might need a bit of help and guidance along the way.
Enjoy a free 15-day trial of our risk assessment software to use templates and for help completing professional risk assessments. Alternatively, use the following information about the five steps in a risk assessment process (as laid out by the HSE (Health & Safety Executive)) to build your own from scratch.
What is the first step of a risk assessment?
Step One: Identify the hazards
The first step of a risk assessment is identifying hazards and the risks they pose. By definition, a hazard is a danger or something that can cause harm. A risk determines the likelihood of the hazard actually causing a person harm or injury – and this is what you factor into the first step in a risk assessment.
Common workplace hazards include:
- Exposure to hazardous substances – if your employees are exposed to or use hazardous substances at work, such as chemicals, this should appear in your risk assessment. You need to ensure the products are safely stored, used, and disposed of.
- Electricity – unsurprisingly, there are numerous hazards associated with working with electricity. This includes electric shocks or burns from contact with live wiring, or injuries acquired from electrical equipment. You should also consider the event of an explosion or fire when writing your risk assessment.
- Machinery – machinery should also factor into your risk assessment. For example, what injuries can occur if the equipment is misused, or otherwise damaged?
- Falls – workplace accidents happen from time to time. They’re hard to predict but can include something as simple as slipping on trailing wires. You must ensure you note down any potential risks of slips, trips, and falls into the first step of a risk assessment to minimise the chance of such events occurring.
- Working from a height – if your employees use ladders, cranes, or scaffolding as part of their routine, the risks of working from a height must be part of your risk assessment. For example, what height are they working from, and what injuries could be sustained should an accident occur? Similar assessments should be carried out if they work in confined spaces or alone.
The above list is by no means exhaustive. You’ll have to take other factors into account when writing the first step in a risk assessment. The easiest way to do this is simply to walk around your business and note any obvious potential risks and hazards you see.
After completing your initial observations, ask others if they think you’ve missed anything. As risk assessments are varied, you must consider every tiny detail – even if something seems too obvious to write down. You may also wish to read risk assessments published by companies within a similar industry, as they’ll likely have many similarities.
Although some potential hazards will jump right out to you upon observation, you also need to consider long term risks. For example, what are the potential hazards associated with prolonged exposure to a particular chemical? Or, if your workplace is particularly noisy, what implications can this have on your employees’ hearing in ten or fifteen years? Remember, the more complete your assessment is, the stronger it will be and the better protected your employees and customers.
Second step of a risk assessment
Step Two: Consider who could be harmed
After identifying workplace hazards you need to determine who is at risk. At first, this may seem straightforward. For example, when mentioning risks associated with machinery, it seems obvious that the employee handling the equipment is the person at risk.
However, you also need to consider others who may work in the vicinity of the room, cleaners who may oversee maintaining the equipment’s upkeep, and whether the general public will be nearby when the equipment is in use.
Some employees may be more vulnerable than others or may have to be factored into your risk assessment differently. This could include:
- Young workers
- People with disabilities
- Expectant mothers
- Lone workers
Step Three: Evaluate risks and set-up precautions
Once you have identified a risk, you need to set up a plan to eliminate the risk or put suitable precautions in place to minimise it.
The first question you should ask is whether you can eliminate the hazard. For example, if your employees often carry heavy equipment, they’re at risk of injuring their back, neck, or shoulders. Eliminate the risk of injury by sourcing equipment that makes heavy lifting easier or does the work for them.
Although eliminating all risks is impossible, you can find ways to minimise their impact. This can be achieved in many ways:
- Substitution – one way you can minimise risks is by swapping out old or damaged equipment for something new. If working with chemicals, you should research less hazardous alternatives and ensure that you use the product that poses the least risk to yourself, your employees, and your customers.
- Prevent access – ensuring only those who need to use the equipment have access to it can reduce risks. You can do this by requiring employees to use a key card to enter a specific space or operate equipment. You should also ensure that all personnel are given training before using anything new. If you’re doing work in public areas (such as construction), you should set up barriers and signs to ensure the public will not get in the way of work.
- Prepare – ensure that your employees are ready to face any risks they might encounter. Although this enforces the necessity of appropriate training, you should also provide them with PPE equipment. Personal protective equipment is often split into five sections:
- Eye and face protection – safety glasses, goggles, and face shields to stop anything entering their eyes, such as dust or chemicals.
- Respiratory protection – face masks to ensure your employees are not exposed to dangerous chemicals or substances.
- Hand protection – insulated gloves (if dealing with anything warm) and latex/vinyl gloves (when dealing with chemicals or cleaning products).
- Hearing protection – earplugs and earmuffs/ear defenders to protect hearing.
- Body protection – high visibility jackets/coats (particularly useful if your employees work outdoors, on the roadside, or at times when the lighting may not be the best). Harnesses (essential when employees are working at a great height/have a risk of falling), overalls/coveralls (to protect the skin from exposure to chemicals and other substances), safety boots with steel caps (protect feet if a heavy item is dropped), and antistatic and conductive footwear (to minimise the risk of getting an electric shock).
- Set up facilities – you can also minimise workplace hazards by ensuring your workplace has suitable facilities in place, such as waste disposal and washing facilities.
It’s important to remember that you cannot remove risks entirely. There’s always an element of chance involved when something could go wrong. However, the above steps make the chances of this much smaller. This is known as ‘residual risk’ – the risk that exists under some element of control.
Step Four: Record your findings and implement them
Once you’ve completed the above steps, it’s time to finally start writing your risk report. Although this may seem daunting, you’ve already done most of the hard work. To begin with, start with a rough draft where you note down all the risks and the steps you’ve taken to minimise them. For example:
- Risk – a member of staff tripping/falling over
- Steps taken – ensure that the workplace is cleaned frequently. If any spillages occur, a wet floor sign is clearly displayed before cleaning up begins. Employees should also be encouraged to take care when moving around and ensure that they keep work areas clear.
Once you’ve completed your risk assessment, you need to notify your staff and employees to ensure they understand any changes you made. You may also wish to sign accountability to individual members of the team. For example, you should assign a particular person to check specific equipment each day.
Step Five: Review and update
The final step in a risk assessment is to review your documents and how effective they are. Your job isn’t necessarily complete once you’ve done the initial risk assessment. You’ll need to regularly review and update this plan to ensure it continues to meet your employees’ needs.
If you buy new equipment, it must be assessed and added to the plan. You may also need to complete a new assessment whenever you hire a new employee.
What does suitable and sufficient mean?
For your risk assessment to meet government requirements, you need to ensure that it is ‘suitable and sufficient.’ This means that you can prove that you have followed the above steps and ascertained that you have:
- Completed the appropriate checks.
- Considered and noted down who is vulnerable to the risk.
- Minimised the risk where possible, leaving only a residual risk in place.
- Ensured your workers understand the changes.
There are plenty of risk assessment templates available online that provide you with advice on structure and phrasing. You can use and edit these to make them unique to you and your business, as every business is different.
If the process of including all the steps in a risk assessment process is daunting, we’re here to help. Our health and safety risk assessment software can reduce your time from completing a risk assessment by 80% by using our online step-by-step creator. We’re also on hand to help explain the steps for carrying out a risk assessment, should you require further clarification.
Start your free 15-day trial of our risk assessment software online today and see how it helps you save time, effort, and money.