Assessment of Health and Safety Risk at Workplace
Risk assessment is a comprehensive screening of the workplace to identify possible exposures by an organization’s employees to hazards and other risk elements which may have an adverse impact on people, processes, and situations (Government of Canada, 2021).
Assessing the Safety and Health risk will evaluate the risk and consequences of the event that might affect the organizational performance through disruptions in its’ daily activities. An effective program in risk assessment will ensure an effective and swift response towards recovery and eliminate or minimize the impact on the organization (National Research Council, 2003).
Further, organizations could determine the adequacy of the existing control measures and make improvements, if required, and assist organizations in complying with regulatory or legal requirements imposed (Government of Canada, 2021).
The four key elements of a Risk Management Program formed in a Risk Management Plan are;
Risk Identification, 2. Risk Assessment, 3. Risk Action management, 4. Risk Reporting and Monitoring (Remsey et al., 2020).
The success of the risk management system is a topic that was argued, and the success and the failures will depend on the amount of involvement by the organization and leadership (Gallagher et al., 2003).
Figure 1 below illustrates the iterative and cyclic process of Risk Management.
Figure 1 – Process of Risk Management
Source: (Nunes, 2016)
References
Gallagher, C., Underhill, E. & Rimmer, M., (2003) Occupational safety and health management systems in Australia: Barriers to success. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 1(2), pp.67–81.
Government of Canada, C.C.for O.H.and S., (2021) Risk assessment: OSH answers. Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. Available at: https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/risk_assessment.html [Accessed September 4, 2021].
National Research Council, (2003) Occupational health and safety in the care and use of nonhuman primates. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, https://doi.org/10.17226/10713, pp.68-9.
Nunes, I.L., (2016) OSHwiki. Available at: https://oshwiki.eu/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health_risk_assessment_methodologies [Accessed September 5, 2021].
Remsey, J., (2020) Four Key Elements of an Effective Risk Management Program. [online] Blog.imec.org. Available at: <http://blog.imec.org/four-key-elements-of-an-effective-risk-management> [Accessed 5 September 2021].
Agreed and to add from a health care perspective. Health care providers (physician and nurses) are the backbone of world health. They work in diverse settings, such as, hospitals, nursing homes, doctors’ offices, and clinics, patient homes, with the homeless and in refugee camps, day care centers, nurseries, schools and industry. Globally, health care providers are exposed each day to a variety of health and safety risks. A healthy work environment is complex and multidimensional, comprised of components and relationships among the components (RNAO, 2008).
ReplyDeleteEarlier studies have revealed the link between safety training and enhanced safety performance (Huang et al., 2006). Accordingly, effective training helps employees to have a sense of belonging and thus, is more accountable for safety in their workplace. In addition, a company objective and communication of the objective to all workers is the crucial aspect of effective health and safety management as lack of communication may hinder employee involvement (Vassie & Lucas, 2001).
DeleteAgreed with your view, in addition First is the internal environment at the workplace and it is related to overall condition in the workplace. Second are the harmful conditions which are present in the external environment outside the workplace (Towlson 2003)
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