Business face various risks and effective risk assessment and management is crucial for the long term success of business. Risk management is an important way to protect your workers and your business, while at the same time complying with the law. An effective risk assessment and evaluation system can help business identify the potential risk and take effective measures in advance.
Identifying Potential Risks
The first thing for effective risk assessment and management is to identify the potential risks. There are two types of risks: hazard and risks. Hazards and risks are not the same thing. A hazard is an act or condition that has the potential to cause damage to plant or equipment, or result in an illness or injury. A risk is the likelihood of a specific consequence occurring. Risks are usually expressed in terms of likelihood and consequences. Despite their difference, hazard and risks are sometime used interchangeably.
When identifying the hazard to your business and workplace, it is important to exam all aspects of work place and plant. This is the process of examining each work area and work task for the purpose of identifying all the hazards. You need to work out how people could be harmed. You may also get opinions and information from workers and employees. Once you have gathered and identify the potential hazard, you need to know that the process of identifying the hazard is an on-going process and you should constantly update your list.
Risk Assessment and Evaluation
After you have identified the potential hazard, you need to perform risk assessment and evaluation. A risk evaluation is to evaluate the likelihood of an injury occurring, along with its probable consequences. Risk assessments have two key factors to consider: the results and the probability. You can use a simple matrix to perform risk assessment and categories the risks as following: critical risk; high risk ; moderate risk; low risk; very low risk.
Risk Control Measures
After the risks have been categorized, it is important to take effective measures based on the categorization. Urgent action is required for risks assessed as Critical or High risk. For moderate risks, you may develop a risk control plan with responsibilities and completion dates.