Best Practices in Safety Assessment

Employees are exposed to substantial risk of injury or damage as they go about their daily activities at the work place. The law expects the employer to manage the worker health and safety at work by preventing occupational illnesses and accidents.

The process of enhancing safety at the workplace requires the business management to identify the source of the risk, plan about how to dealing with the risk and look for ways to prevent the accident or injury from happening. The whole process can be divided into three stages namely the identification of hazards, carrying out risk assessments and preparing a statement of safety. Hop over to this webpage for more details.

 Identifying hazards

A hazard is anything that has the potential to cause injury or harm. Such items as chemicals, machinery, and certain working methods can cause harm. In assessing the risk, the manager looks at the likelihood of the injury happening in the course of working at the workplace. Moreover, he or she should also check the likelihood that the degree of harm from the accident will be severe. Lastly, he or she should ascertain the number of people who are likely to be exposed to the injury. The managers should also come up with a list of all the possible risks at the business premises and ways to deal with them conveniently.

Writing a safety statement

According to the law, every organization is supposed to produce a statement that outlines the program to safeguard the safety of the employees as they work, the health of the visitors who may come to the workplace including the shareholders, customers and the general public. In the statement, the business must show commitment to the health and safety of all its members.

 In addition, the written program should also show how the employer plans to ensure that health conditions at the workplace are conducive for all the employees. There should also be resources that are put in place to maintain optimal safety and health conditions.

In considering the safety of the workplace, the company should let it known to the employees the company policy of safety of the workplace. In the high-risk activities, it should train the workers on ways to protect themselves from any harm. Moreover, new employees that join the workforce should be oriented on the risks at the workplace and ways to avoid causing harm and injury to themselves and the rest of the workforce.

 Safety measures

In the same line, the company should hire sufficiently competent workforce that is knowledgeable in the basic safety measures when playing their roles. The company should also avail the necessary protective gear to protect its workers during the work. If here are any movable machines, there should be adequate safety controls to stop the machinery in case of an emergency.

 Basic safety equipment such as fire extinguishers and water jets should be available and working at all time. These items should also be accessible by anyone in the room. The safety assessment should be reviewed regularly in order to establish new risk and measure the company's performance in dealing with risks that have occurred since the last assessment.