04/08/2022
Good morning.You are probably already taking steps to protect your employees, but
your risk assessment will help you decide whether you have covered all you need to.
Think about how accidents and ill health could happen and concentrate on real risks – those that are most likely and which will cause the most harm. One of the most important aspects of your risk assessment is accurately identifying the potential hazards in your workplace.
A good starting point is to walk around your workplace and think about any hazards. In other words, what is it about the activities, processes or substances used that could injure your employees or harm their health?
When you work in a place every day it is easy to overlook some hazards. Ask your employees what they think the hazards are, as
they may notice things that are not obvious to you and may have some good ideas on how to control the risks.
Risk is a part of everyday life and you are not expected to eliminate all risks. What you must do is make sure you know about the main risks and the things you need to do to manage them
responsibly. Generally, you need to do everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect people from harm. This means balancing the level of risk against the measures needed to control the real risk in terms of money, time or trouble. However, you do not need
to take action if it would be grossly disproportionate to the level of risk.
