Risk Assessment Process
Risk Assessment Process
Everyone is familiar with the risk assessment process, although we may not be aware of it. Imagine driving to work in the morning. It's normally a 25 minute commute and you are five minutes late leaving home.
You assess the risk of speeding in order to get to work on time. Those risks include the potential for an accident and possibly getting a ticket. How do you go about making a decision about what to do?
Risk Assessment Process - How Do We Assess Risk?
The are two parts to the risk assessment process:
- Hazard assessment
- Exposure assessment
When we think of risk assessment what typically comes to mind is hazard assessment.
Hazard assessment involves evaluating the hazard(s) to determine its nature and the seriousness of the hazard. In the example of being late for work, the hazards are the potential for an accident and the potential for receiving a ticket.
If you are driving to work in North Dakota in the summer, where the road is straight and dry, and there are few cars, the hazard level is different than if you are driving to work in the winter in New York City.
In addition, speeding tickets in New York are expensive. So the "hazard" in New York may be evaluated as greater.
The second part of the risk assessment process typically happens without our recognizing it as a part of the process. What is the potential for exposure to the hazard? During your morning commute in North Dakota you've never seen a highway patrol officer.
The potential "exposure" to getting a ticket is very low. On the other hand, New York City is rated as the number one location for speed traps. The potential for getting a speeding ticket is much greater in New York.
In going through the risk assessment process we'll see that risk can be reduced or eliminated in two ways. Either the hazard level or the exposure can be reduced or eliminated. To determine the best action to take requires that the risk assessment process look at both the hazard and the exposure.
Risk Assessment Process - Industrial Safety
Employees of a manufacturing company use a volatile chemical as a part of their normal work. If the concentrated vapors from this chemical are inhaled, there may be significant negative health hazards.
Ingesting this chemical is fatal. The chemical is also highly flammable and its vapors are explosive. As we assess the hazard level we see that it is a very hazardous substance.
Next, however, the potential for exposure must be evaluated. The chemical is gasoline, and it is used to power the delivery vans the employees use. The potential for exposure to the hazards of gasoline in this situation is very low.
The result of the risk assessment process is that the risk resulting from the gasoline used in the delivery vans is assessed as being very low, because there is no exposure.
In the risk assessment process evaluating both the hazard and the exposure is important. Reducing the risk can be done by addressing either the hazard level or the potential for exposure.
For example, guarding moving parts on machines, to prevent people from putting their hands into the moving parts, prevents exposure to the hazard. The hazard is still there, but exposure to the hazard has been eliminated.
Risk Assessment Process - Accept The Risk
Let's go back to the speeding example. Assume the road is straight and dry and there is no other traffic. Your car is in good mechanical condition and is capable of safely traveling at a higher speed. So you evaluate the safety risk as being low.
But, you know this section of road is regularly patrolled, so the potential for getting a speeding ticket is high. You really like to sleep in, and you leave your home late every day. The result is that the same decision must be made every day.
Do you speed and risk getting a ticket or stay within the speed limit and arrive at work late? Your experience has been that you only get caught about once a month, and that sleeping late is worth the cost of a speeding ticket once a month, so the decision is to break the law.
In this example it was determined that the monetary costs resulting from the risk (the cost of a speeding ticket) are less than the perceived costs of solving the problem (getting up earlier).
In the workplace a company that is repeatedly cited by OSHA for the same violation might have made this type of decision. Their risk assessment process could have gone something like this:
OSHA says there is a problem with using aluminum ladders within ten feet of an overhead electrical wire.We warn our employees to be careful not to let ladders contact overhead wires.
We've never had anyone injured in an electrical accident. Doing the work in a different way that does not involve using a ladder close to an overhead electrical wire would be expensive. It cost less to pay the OSHA fine than it does to change the way we do things
What's missing in this risk assessment process?
Risk Assessment Process Errors
The error the company made in this example is that of not correctly evaluating the hazard. They made an assumption.
Assumptions can blind us to the truth because, in many cases, we don't even know we are making an assumption. In this case the assumption is the most common assumption people make... that everything will continue in the future just as it has in the past.
A proper evaluation of the hazard would reveal that both the hazard level and the potential for exposure are high. Should an accident happen, the most likely outcome is that someone will be killed.
That puts the "cost" very high and reveals the necessity of changing the work practices such that ladders are not used within ten feet of overhead power lines.
When conducting a risk assessment, watch out for hidden assumptions.
Facility Safety Inspection Workbook
Insight into Facility Safety
Risk Assessment Process Tools
The tools and methods used to conduct a risk assessment vary depending on the type of risk being evaluated. For workplace safety, Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) is a common risk assessment tool.
When doing an environmental risk assessment you might want to first visit the EPA's web page that provides guidance and tools for assessing and managing various types of environmental risks.
Other government agencies such as FEMA, also provide guidance for the risk assessment process in areas related to their expertise.
The most common tools used in the risk assessment process include checklists, handbooks, and questionnaires. The risk assessment process may involve inspections, interviews and suggestion boxes. One of the most useful tools are your accident records, and in particular reports of close calls.
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work provides information about workplace risk assessment tools.
The risk assessment process is not one that should be taken lightly. It's not marking off a few lines on a checklist. It's not something to be ignored and the resulting OSHA fines are considered just a cost of doing business.
Determine which tools and methods are appropriate for the risk assessment process you need to conduct, then use them to identify risks, and eliminate, guard or protect against them.
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