Appendix 1 - Risk management overview

Section 22 of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 (PDF, 766 KB) states that health and safety can generally be managed by following the steps of a risk management process. The Workplace Health and Safety Risk Management Code of Practice 2007 supports this statement and describes a five step process for managing exposure to health and safety risks that can arise from workplace hazards.

The five steps are:

This process is illustrated below.

The workplace health and safety risk management process

Risk management is an ongoing process. It should be undertaken at various times, including:

now, if you have not done it before
when a change occurs
after an incident (and/or near miss)
at regularly scheduled times appropriate to your workplace

Risk management should be done in consultation with workers to ensure better health and safety outcomes.

A risk management form can be found in appendix 2.

STEP 1 - Identify hazards

Identifying workplace hazards means looking for those things at your workplace that have the potential to cause harm.

There are a number of general types of workplace hazards, including:

work environment (such as heat, lighting, workplace violence)
energy (such as electricity)
manual tasks
noise
substances (such as chemical, biological)
plant (such as tools and appliances)

All workplace hazards can be classified under one of the above.

You may wish to begin looking for hazards by dividing your workplace into logical groupings, such as work processes, tasks, job roles or workplace areas. The most appropriate way depends on your workplace.

Activities that can help identify hazards include:

inspecting the workplace
worker consultation
worker surveys
testing plant, equipment and noise levels
environmental or medical monitoring
scientific or technical evaluation
analysing records of incidents and near misses, worker complaints, sick leave and staff turnover
information from designers, manufacturers, suppliers and other organizations such as unions, employers bodies and health and safety consultancies

STEP 2 - Assess risk

You now need to assess the level of risk associated with each of the hazards. Risk is the likelihood that death, injury or illness might result because of the hazard. To assess risk, you need to consider both the likelihood and consequence of an incident occurring at your workplace.

Various methods can be used to undertake a risk assessment. The risk priority provides a rough means of ranking risks. The risk scores derived from this method should be interpreted with caution, as the process by which they are obtained is subjective and judgemental.

The level of risk, or 'risk score', is determined by plotting consequence and likelihood estimates on the risk priority chart below.

Risk Priority Chart

LIKELIHOOD How likely could it happen?	CONSEQUENCES: How severely could it hurt someone?
LIKELIHOOD How likely could it happen?	EXTREME Death, permanent disablement	MAJOR Serious bodily injury	MODERATE Casualty treatment	MINOR First aid only, no lost time
VERY LIKELY Could happen frequently	1	2	3	4
LIKELY Could happen occasionally	2	3	4	5
UNLIKELY Could happen, but rare	3	4	5	6
VERY UNLIKELY Could happen, probably never will	4	5	6	7

It is important to note that the risk scores obtained have no absolute value. This chart provides a means of ranking the risks only.

The scores (1-7) in the risk priority chart indicate how important it is to do something about each risk, as follows:

Score	Action
1,2 or 3	Do something about these risks immediately
4 or 5	Do something about these risks as soon as possible
6 or 7	These risks may not need immediate attention

STEP 3 - Decide on control measures

Control measures should now be selected according to the list of control priorities.

Firstly, try to eliminate the hazard.

If this is not possible, prevent or minimise exposure to the risk by one or a combination of:

substituting a less hazardous material, process or equipment
redesigning equipment or work processes
isolating the hazard

(Note: These measures may include engineering methods.)

As a last resort, when exposure to the risk is not (or can not be) minimised by other means:

introduce administrative controls
use appropriate personal protective equipment

In many cases, it will be necessary to use more than one control measure to satisfactorily manage exposure to a risk. Some control measures that are lower control priorities may need to be put in place until a permanent measure can be achieved.

The control measures selected should:

adequately control exposure to the risk;
not create another hazard; and
allow you to do your work without undue discomfort or distress

STEP 4 - Implement control measures

This step involves putting selected control measures in place at your workplace. This could involve:

Developing work procedures to ensure the new control measures are effective, e.g. defining responsibilities of management, supervisors and workers.
Clearly communicating information about the new control measures and the reasons for the changes to workers and other persons at the workplace.
Providing training and instruction for workers, supervisors and other persons in relation to the new control measures.
Providing adequate supervision to verify that the new control measures are being used correctly.
Including provisions in work procedures about the maintenance of the control measures to ensure the ongoing effectiveness of the new control measures.

STEP 5 - Monitor and review

The final step in the risk management process is to monitor and review the effectiveness of the control measures. In doing so you should determine whether:

the chosen control measures have been implemented as planned
the chosen control measures are working
the new control measures have created new problems or worsened existing problems

You should also set a date to review the entire risk management process.

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