Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment Services
OSHA Risk Assessment Consultants and Training
What Is Hazard Identification?
Hazard identification is the process of finding, listing, and characterizing hazards.
What Is Risk Assessment?
Risk assessment is the overall process of hazard identification, risk analysis, and risk evaluation.
Occupational Hazard Identification and Assessment Tips for OSHA Compliance
Workplace injuries and illnesses can stem from a lack of organization and attention among employers and managers. Many incidents might have been prevented if they had been recognized and anticipated.
You want an effective safety and health program for your company. Your workers are important, and their wellbeing certainly matters to you and the mission of the business. It all starts with igniting a process of both hazard recognition and hazard analysis.
What Is Hazard Identification?
In short, hazard identification happens as you observe your employees and all aspects of their work, as you study their everyday tasks, tools, and environment and highlight potential risks involved.
You may be tempted to believe that occupational hazard identification is all about pointing to physical safety threats. However, many times gases and vapors have absolutely no odor, and their effects on human health might not kick in immediately. So, yes, you want to eliminate, replace, or in some way control those noticeable dangers, but you’ve also got to keep a mental eye turned toward chemical and biological hazards, along with ergonomic risk factors.
Reach out to safety consulting firms like Safety by Design for a more thorough description and for ways in which we might assist you and your company.
How to Identify Health and Safety Hazards: OSHA Hazard Assessment
Are you interested in learning how to identify hazards in the workplace? First of all, it’s important that some safety-related issues be handled immediately. Things like tripping hazards and other housekeeping items need to be dealt with the moment they are seen to establish a work environment that prizes precaution and carefulness.
Unfortunately, not every occupational hazard is easily identified. Here’s a quick list to help your hazard identification and assessment. These components of the hazard assessment process take time, but as soon as a hazard is identified you should begin taking steps to resolve it.
1. Gather Existing Information
You may already have some information regarding workers’ health and safety. Review and share it with your employees. There’s no time like the present to educate your team about their protection and wellbeing.
You might look through equipment manuals, your SDS (Safety Data Sheets), inspection reports, workers comp and injury records, existing patterns of behavior or illnesses, hazard recognition programs that are already in place, and employee surveys. You should also be in tune with OSHA, NIOSH, and CDC alerts and updated publications.
As you’re collecting existing materials, you may recognize the need to bring in the experts from the onset. That’s where Safety by Design comes in. Our name says it all. We’re in the business of designing safe and healthy work environments, and we do that by working closely with you to tackle the essentials. Contact us today for more information on how to improve the safety of your workplace.
2. Workplace Inspection
It’s vital to workplace injury prevention that you keep inspecting as time goes on. Even if you’ve taken precautions, remember that equipment wears out, processes evolve, tools are not replaced, maintenance falls by the wayside, and what was once a routine housekeeping measure has been forgotten.
Before incidents arise, make a conscious effort to inspect your workers’ tasks, their tools and equipment, and their overall environment regularly. You’re certainly looking for OSHA hazards like a slip or trip possibilities, electrical issues, fire protection, and even clear, posted emergency plans.
3. Identify Hazards Regarding Worker Health
Identifying physical hazards is a bit different than identifying the health-related concerns. We mentioned earlier that health hazards aren’t always the most obvious. They’re present in the chemical, biological, and ergonomic realms, which too often go unnoticed and, thus, remain high-risk factors.
The Safety by Design team works with companies like yours to provide them with tools like an occupational health risk assessment template, as well as expertise that assures your workplace is one of optimal safety. OSHA hazard identification can be strict and rather overwhelming, so let us help. We can do more in the name of occupational health if we work together.
4. Investigating Incidents
After you identify safety hazards in the workplace, you’ll want to investigate (if you haven’t begun to already) the injuries, illnesses, close calls, near misses, and other concerns. In your investigation, you’ll dive into ways you might further protect your team. You’ll uncover and uproot a workplace history that sheds light on your present tasks. You’ll get at the core regarding why an incident occurred, and you can work to be sure the same issue never comes about again.
5. Taking Control
Hazard identification and control measures go hand in hand. If you’re identifying problems but failing to correct them, then your situation has only grown worse. Take ultimate control, as you even plan for nonroutine/infrequent tasks and emergency situations. Just because it’s unforeseeable doesn’t mean it’s not looming on the horizon.
Once again, being proactive and properly training your employees to be safe at all costs is the best thing you can do for your company.
It’s a lot to take in, we understand. But we’re here. And Safety by Design has even created a safety management software, SafeTeam, to keep your business organized, on track, healthy, and smooth in all operations.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help improve the safety and efficiency of your team.
The process of Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment seems simple enough: look, find, list, characterize, analyze, and evaluate.
Nothing is as simple as it first appears. There is no simple way to identify hazards or do an OSHA risk assessment, nor will a single technique apply in all situations. Identifying and ranking hazards requires knowledge of workplace activities, the urgency of situations, and most importantly, objective judgment. The safety risk management consultants at Safety by Design can help!
For simple or less complex situations, an assessment can literally be a checklist, a probability matrix, or a discussion or meeting with a Foreman based on their knowledge and experience. For more complex situations, a team of knowledgeable personnel who are familiar with the work is necessary.
OSHA Risk Assessment Training
OSHA Risk Assessments are very important as they form an integral part of an occupational health and safety management plan. The aim of the OSHA risk assessment process is to evaluate hazards, then remove the hazard or minimize the level of the hazard risk by adding control measures as necessary. By doing so, you have created a safer and healthier workplace.
OSHA Risk Assessments should be done by a risk assessment consultant(s), or an individual or team of individuals that have completed hazard identification and risk assessment training courses with a good working knowledge of the situation being studied. Also on the team (or as sources of information) are the supervisors and workers who work with the process under review as these individuals are the most familiar with the operation.
The assessment needs to consider not only the current state of the workplace but any potential situations, as well. By determining the level of risk associated with the hazard, the employer and the health and safety committee can decide whether a control program is required and to what level.
Ranking or prioritizing hazards is one way to help determine which risk is the most serious and thus which to control first. Priority is usually established by accounting for employee exposure and the potential for incident, injury, or illness. By assigning a priority to the risks, you are creating a ranking or an action list.
It is important to know if your risk assessment is complete and accurate. It is also essential to be sure that any changes in the workplace have not introduced new hazards or changed hazards that were once ranked as the lower priority to a higher priority.
It is good practice to review your assessment on a regular basis to make sure your control methods are effective. Keeping records of your assessment and any control actions taken is very important.
Safety by Design Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment Training
The experts at Safety by Design can help identify hazards and assess critical risks at your facility. Our top safety consulting company can help improve the safety of your workplace and enhance the quality of life for your employees.
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We offer OSHA hazard identification and risk assessment training from qualified safety professionals to keep your workers safe and your company compliant.