In this CHAS guide, we explain how to carry out a risk assessment by avoiding some of the most common mistakes construction businesses make.
A risk assessment is a critical component of any organisation’s legal duty of care to its employees. To safeguard the health and safety of workers, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires employers to take “reasonably practicable” steps to mitigate health and safety risks across different areas of the organisation.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (the Management Regulations) made this requirement more explicit, calling on businesses to:
- Identify workplace hazards that cause injury or illness to workers
- Decide the likelihood of a hazard causing harm to workers
- Take steps to eliminate or at the very least control the risks posed by workplace hazards.
Image by HSE
With 2.9% of workers in the construction industry suffering a non-fatal work-related injury in 2021 (higher than the average non-fatal injury rate of 1.6% across all industries and the second-highest after the agriculture, fishing and forestry industry’s rate of 4%), construction businesses need to do more to protect their employees from harm.
This is where risk assessments come in.
What Is A Risk Assessment?
A risk assessment is an evaluation of all work activities that happen within an organisation. It seeks to identify hazards that could potentially cause harm or illness to workers, visitors and members of the public.
Related Reading: An Introduction to Risk Assessments
In the construction industry, these hazards can include:
- Activities such as manual handling (i.e. carrying, lifting, pushing and pulling) of objects, working at a height and operating heavy equipment
- Environmental factors such as noise, vibrations, fire, steam and other hot hazards, chemicals, asbestos and dust
- Behavioural hazards such as not wearing a seatbelt when driving a car or coming to work inebriated.
Identifying these hazards is just the first step of a risk assessment. You’ll then need to assess the potential impact of these hazards — specifically, how likely they are to happen and what kind of danger they represent to your employees.
Once hazards are identified, you’ll need to consider what risks they pose, how they could harm someone, who might be affected and how likely the risk is. You can then implement control measures proportionate to the severity and probability of risk.
After the risk assessment is complete, it should be written up and made available to workers on all levels of your organisation. So the term risk assessment encompasses the above process and the resulting document containing the assessment results.
How To Carry Out A Risk Assessment Effectively — No Mistakes
If you’re wondering how to carry out a risk assessment, be sure to read our five-step guide to conducting risk assessments. It also helps to know some of the more common mistakes we come across regularly so you can take steps to avoid them.
Related Reading: The 5 Steps To Risk Assessment Explained
Risk Assessment Mistake #1: Thinking Of It Purely As A Legal Exercise
Of course, there’s no denying that a risk assessment is a legal requirement. But it helps to remember that the reason for carrying out a risk assessment is to ensure the welfare and well-being of your employees.
It’s a simple thing, but it can completely change your mindset from “We’ve filled out the form, so we’re good” to “Are we sure we’ve thought of all hazards that pose a danger to our staff?”
Risk Assessment Mistake #2: You Don’t Involve Employees
While consulting your employees when carrying out a risk assessment is a legal requirement, we recommend that businesses go beyond talking to a few people and push for a more interactive dialogue with managers, supervisors and workers in different teams or departments.
The people intimately familiar with work hazards are more likely to suggest controls and other hazards that you may not have previously considered.
Related Reading: Who Is Responsible for Workplace Health and Safety?
Free Risk Assessment Template
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Risk Assessment Mistake #3: Failing To Consider Maintenance
Many businesses make the mistake of focusing only on identifying control measures to mitigate hazards.
A standard risk assessment will typically identify measures that need to be in place to control hazards. For example, a guard-railed work platform such as a scaffold can be used to make working at height safer.
However, you should also consider identifying steps to ensure this control measure works as intended. In the case of the scaffold, control measures should also include maintenance.
Risk Assessment Mistake #4: You Are Not Using A System For Ranking Risks
Objectivity is important when evaluating the type of risks your business faces. Remember, a risk assessment isn’t just about listing down the different work hazards in your organisation. It also requires assessing the likelihood of a hazard causing harm and, more importantly, the severity of that harm.
For this reason, we recommend using a risk rating matrix to give each work hazard and its associated outcome an appropriate score. You can see an example of a risk rating matrix below.
Risk Assessment Mistake #5:You Are Not Reviewing Your Risk Assessment
It’s important to remember that a risk assessment is a working or living document. New employees join your organisation, good habits give way to bad ones and work environments change — all of which represents a need to revisit your risk assessment from time to time.
But how often should risk assessments be reviewed? While your organisation is best positioned to decide when a review is necessary, the HSE recommends that risk assessments be reviewed once every year.
Be sure to follow the CHAS blog to get more insights on how to carry out risk assessments. You can also advance your health and safety standards by becoming a CHAS member and starting the process of achieving the Common Assessment Standard.
As a CHAS member, you will get exclusive access to our risk management tools, materials and nationally-recognised accreditation programmes to mitigate risks in up to 13 areas of risk management, including health and safety.
