Free Risk Assessment Template & Guide: How to Identify and Manage Hazards

Risk assessments are a vital part of preventing harm to employees and all others in the area of your work activities. Every activity and workplace will have its own set of different hazards, such as manual handling and slips, trips and falls, hazardous substances etc. It is essential that they are assessed and managed properly to prevent accidents and maintain compliance with health and safety legislation.

In order to complete a risk assessment, organisations must understand why it’s important and how to complete them - all of which are covered in extensive detail in our renowned IOSH Managing Safely course.

What is a Risk Assessment at Work?

A risk assessment at work is a process of assessing and controlling risks caused by hazards in the workplace. A good risk assessment requires excellent observational skills and a deep understanding of the work being undertaken.

Hazards are something that has the potential to harm someone, whether that’s an injury or ill health, such as a slippery floor, working from height, flammable materials etc. The risk is the likelihood of harm occurring combined with the severity of the harm caused.

As laid out by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 – employers have a legal responsibility to make sure that a risk assessment is completed, either by themselves or another competent person, for any work-related activity where the risks are more than negligible.

Risk assessments involve keeping a written record of hazards and the risks associated with them, the person(s) responsible for managing them and the control measures you have determined as necessary to maintain the correct standard of safety.

When Should You Assess Risk?

There are a number of variables that can change, causing the need to arise for an updated risk assessment. Possible changes include:

• Change of process or technology.
• Changes to personnel or the circumstances of workers.
• Changes to the workplace or operations.

We’d also recommend conducting a new risk assessment after any maintenance or cleaning has been carried out, as they are events that can potentially disrupt the previous workflow if equipment has been moved or altered.

You should absolutely conduct a risk assessment following an incident, near miss or report of an adverse situation indicates that current controls are ineffective or are not sufficient. This then allows for effective controls to be put in place to avoid a recurrence of the event.

Should Employees Sign Risk Assessments?

A common practice amongst employers is to have employees sign risk assessments after reading them. Over time this practice has been flagged as archaic. Signing a risk assessment doesn’t always indicate that an employee has taken in the information and understood it.

The focus should be on ensuring that comprehension of the risk assessment is as high as possible, and having it signed by employees does nothing to move the needle forward on this.

Why are Risk Assessments Important?

Conducting risk assessments is the very foundation of a proper health and safety policy. It fulfils your moral duty as an employer to protect your employees and their welfare, as well as your legal obligation. Businesses with five or more people must document this process, however, it is good practice to do so even if not necessary.

The consequences for missing this step can open an employer up to legal action from the affected individual as well as regulatory bodies such as the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). These regulatory bodies will often conduct audits and inspections to ensure that organisations are fulfilling their responsibilities.

The Health and Safety Executive, can take several different actions against organisations that fail to comply, such as:

• Serving notices on duty holders
• Withdrawing approvals
• Varying licences, conditions or exemptions
• Issuing simple cautions
• Prosecution
• Unlimited fines

Risk assessments are essential to generating awareness in the workplace about health and safety, which leads to less injuries and accidents occurring. They also help management make decisions about risk, including ascertaining who is most at risk.

In our IOSH Managing Safely course, have a complete deep dive into risk assessments as well as other essential elements you need to be aware in your line of work, such as:

• Investigating accidents and incidents.
• Measuring performance.

It is worth noting that fire risk assessments are equally important for health and safety, and will require a separate process.

Free Downloadable Risk Assessment Template

Now that you know why a risk assessment is so important to your business, download your free template so you can start making your organisation safer today!

What Steps Are Needed to Manage Risk?

Risk assessments have a natural step-by-step method which is easy to follow. They require you to pay attention diligently whilst completing them, ensuring each section has been completed thoroughly.

Identify Potential Hazards in the Project or Workspace

Observe your workplace and look at what activities, tasks and substances used could be harmful. To properly inform yourself, it’s advisable to look over past accidents and records as a reference point. We would also recommend that you consult employees to understand their perspective and find out who is carrying out certain tasks.

If you would like a good starting point for risks to look out for in nearly all workplaces, we compiled a list of some of the most common risks found in the 9-to-5.

When Should You Consult Employees?

Employers must consult workers in good time on health and safety matters, and this consultation should be part of the ongoing control of risk. Employers should consult with workers on:

• Risks arising from their work, including following an accident or near miss.
• Proposals to manage and/or control these risks.
• What to do if workers are exposed to a risk.
• The best ways of providing information and training.

Deduce Who Might Be Harmed by Them

Use the data you have gathered to ascertain who might be harmed and how they could be affected. List them as employees or contractors. Specific names are not necessary.

Evaluate the Severity of the Risk and the Likelihood of It Happening

It’s important to assess the severity of accident the risk may cause (should it happen). If you understand how severe it can get, that allows you to cover all the possible scenarios up to their most extreme degree.

Establish Control Measures and Take Note of Your Findings

By law, if a workplace has five or more employees, findings of the risk assessment need to be kept electronically or physically. It’s good practice to have a system in place even if your employee numbers are fewer than five. Recording your findings and control measures is imperative, and this should include.

• Hazards discovered.
• People that could be impacted.
• The controls put in place to manage risks.
• Who is responsible for each risk.

You should also note when the assessment was done. Ensure you make the risk assessment proportionate to the activity that is being carried out. Very extensive risk assessments are necessary for large scale projects with multiple moving parts.

Wherever possible, organisations should seek to consult with the workforce to gain their insights on potential risks. Doing this is likely to result in improved engagement from the workforce, which will lower accident rates. These insights will also help to better inform the control measures needed to mitigate risks.

Review Your Assessment Thoroughly and Re-Assess in Future

Risk assessments should be a cyclical process and require consistent revaluation to see if any new hazards have arisen or if existing ones have changed. Circumstances change as businesses grow and change; if you are aware of any changes to the business, you should consider conducting an updated risk assessment.

If the work you are carrying is particularly dangerous you might want to consider applying for a Permit-to-Work.

The best way to fully understand the risk assessment in practice, we strongly recommend you look at our IOSH Managing Safely course below. Have confidence that your staff can accurately and successfully complete workplace risk assessments to a professional standard by enrolling them in the course below.