What is risk assessment?

Part of running a business comes down to knowing a few of the risks like the risk of an injury, the risk of illness, etc. Risk assessment allows you to carefully examine the different things that bring about risk to a business. Risk assessment allows you to make sure you have the resources available to pay for legal damages or any damages that are caused by an employee or faulty machinery.

Of course you always have the hope that accidents will not happen in the workplace, but unfortunately they do happen. If you don't set aside money to pay for wages and other things if an employee is injured, it can literally destroy your company. Holding good insurance is another important thing as an injury at the office can be quite expensive. When you take the time to evaluate the amount of risk your employees will be exposed to, how will you understand how you can make the workplace safer for everyone?

There are a few different steps you need to follow as they will help you identify hazards. They are as follows:

Step # 1 - Walk around
The first thing you need to do is walk around the office. Make a list of all the potential hazards that exist in the workplace. Look at the way your employees perform their job duties to see if they are putting themselves in harms way. Sometimes behavioral habits will cause accidents to occur. As you walk around the office and you look for hazards, you also need to talk to your employees. Ask them for their opinions on what hazards exist in the workplace. Since they work with machinery and other things, it's easier for them to tell you where the problems are.

Step # 2 - Where is the risk?
Every business will have different areas that are at high risk while others are not. Some employees may work with equipment that is particularly dangerous, causing them to be at an increased risk for harm. New employees are always considered a risk because they are still learning the ropes of the company. As they are learning, it can be easy for them to make mistakes and place themselves in harms way.

Step # 3 - What precautions have you made?
Next, you need to take a look at the various types of risk and then determine if you have taken enough precautions to counter the risk. Have you implemented a behavior-based safety program to properly train employees and to change the way they work to keep them out of harms path? Check the healthy and safety standards and make sure you are in compliance with all of the laws. This means you need to pay worker's compensation and you need to make sure all claims are filed properly. Try your best to take safety one step further and provide employees with extra clothing, new equipment, and other things that will prevent workplace accidents.

Step # 4 - Record the hazards
As you have gone through the workplace and you have made a list of all the hazards, you also need to record every time an accident happens or when an accident almost happens. Recording all of the reported hazards will allow you to see where changes need to be made to prevent any future problems.

Step # 5 - Make revisions
Your last step is to constantly monitor the risks and look for ways to improve hazards. Making revisions is an important step you need to take as a manager to ensure that your employees are protected. Hire an employee to go over the safety regulations of the company to make sure that the work place remains risk-free as much as possible.