Section 1.2           Identify hazards as part of work planning and work process

By following a risk management process, the types of health of safety problems which might affect workers can be identified and action taken to prevent problems from occurring, or at least minimize the risk.

In a nutshell, the process of managing risks is a three-step process:

1. Find the hazards (‘hazard identification’)
2. Check them out and consider how likely it is that problems will occur, and how serious the consequences might be (‘risk assessment’), and
3. Do what can reasonably be done to prevent accidents or injuries (‘risk control’).

Measures put in place to control health and safety risks must of course be checked to see if they are actually working – that is, if they are successfully controlling the risks they were intended to control (‘monitoring and evaluation of risk controls’).

The process of risk management can be applied to any type of work or risk, but it is necessary to have procedures in place and to make sure they are implemented, to ensure the process achieves its aims. It needs to be on-going, as hazards can be overlooked, or changes in work practices or personnel can create new risks. Risk management needs to be incorporated into everyday business activities.

Further, for risk management processes to work there needs to be people responsible for:

• initiating the actions to be done
• developing the actions into workplace procedures
• training others to follow these procedures
• supervising people to make sure they understand and follow the procedures
• reviewing the procedures and updating them when circumstances change.

Hazard identification — find the hazards

The first step in the risk management process is known as hazard identification. A hazard is anything that can harm people. Risks to people’s health or safety arise from hazards. All the types of potential hazards present in a particular job or task need to be considered, and the risks presented by these hazards need to be assessed to work out how likely they are to cause harm, and how serious the harm might be.

Methods of hazard identification

As we have seen, hazards arise from the workplace environment, the use of plant and substances in the workplace, poor work design, inappropriate management systems and procedures, and human behaviour. A set of procedures can be used in your organisation to enable workplace hazards to be identified.

Safety audit

This is a systematic and periodic inspection of the workplace to evaluate the effectiveness of the organisation's health and safety system. The audit may be conducted by a safety consultant or workplace OHS professionals such as safety officers. An audit usually contains a written report for management and is usually referred to any OHS committee.

Workplace inspections

These are regular inspections of the workplace by managers, supervisors and safety committee members to determine by observation what hazards exist in the workplace. Inspections involve consultation with supervisors and employees and a report to management and/or the safety committee.

Accident investigations

Many workplaces have a set of procedures for investigating and reporting on accidents (and near misses) to identify the hazards that contributed to the incident. Many accidents that involve ‘lost time’ should be reported to the state authority (WorkCover NSW). Details of reporting requirements are on the Accident Report form which is available from all WorkCover offices.

Consultation

Employees are often more aware of hazards and the possible ways of controlling them, than management. Consulting employees can improve the assessment process as well as improving cooperation with control measure eventually put in place. If you have an OHS Committee, make sure it's accessible to everyone.

Analysis of injury and illness records

Workplaces are required to keep records of injuries and illness. Many workplaces also generate reports and statistics based on workers' compensation claims. These statistics can be analysed to show the presence of hazards in the workplace.

Health and environmental monitoring

As with the OHS audits, monitoring may be done by OHS consultants or safety officers to provide technical advice about suspected problems. Monitoring may show that a substance or process is a hazard and its severity. In this way, monitoring is associated both with hazard identification and workplace assessment and evaluation. A workplace hazard can also be brought to management's notice outside the routine investigating and reporting systems.

Complaints

Many workplace hazards are brought to the attention of a supervisor or manager through a complaint being made by an employee.

Observation

A supervisor, manager or committee member, as part of his or her normal duties, may observe a workplace hazard.

Employers need to identify whatever hazards exist in the workplace, and to do this they should consult workers, to find out workers’ views of any threats to their health or safety. Workers need to be able to contribute to this process by telling their supervisor of any potential health and safety problems they find.

Workers should note matters such as trip hazards, unsafe electrical installations, any type of unsafe situation or dangerous work practice, or anything else they think might be a health or safety problem, and bring these to the attention of their supervisor according to workplace procedure. Supervisors should take action to rectify the problem.

If the problem is not resolved, workers may need to report the matter to the workplace health and safety committee or the OHS representative. If the matter is still not resolved, workers could ask for advice from the state’s OHS authority, which in New South Wales is WorkCover NSW.

Management should also investigate all accidents and near misses to work out what could have been done to prevent them, and workers should co-operate fully in these investigations, reporting incidents according to workplace procedures.

Reviewing OHS information

Examples of workplace OHS information include:

• manufacturers instruction book for a piece of machinery
• WorkCover guidance material
• OHS Regulation requirements
• industry Codes of Practices
• Australian Standards
• industry experience
• material safety data sheets.

Types of risks vary widely from one occupation to another, but the risk of back injuries from lifting and moving loads is the most common hazard in many occupations.

With problems such as back pain, hearing loss or stress, it is not always clear cut whether, or to what extent, work was a contributing factor. The problem may have been caused partly by personal or non-work factors. And with occupational diseases such as cancer, the problem may not show up until many years after the person left the job which caused the health problem.

Occupational hygiene ― techniques to identify health risks

These techniques are used to identify the presence of a hazard and the degree of risk associated with the individual employee’s exposure to hazardous substances or hazardous processes. They are compared with recommended occupational exposure limits and exposure standards. There are four methods of monitoring:

• Personal monitoring - measures and estimates the degree of exposure and risk to hazards such as noise and dust within the employee’s breathing zone, as well as the duration of this exposure,
• Environmental monitoring - measures and estimates the degree of exposure to hazards such as noise, dust, chemical fumes, heat and radiation within the whole working environment.
• Biological monitoring - measures the level of chemical substance in human metabolites. Biochemical monitoring of these body functions and systems (e.g. urine, blood and exhaled air) is useful to indicate the employee’s exposure to a particular hazard.
• Health surveillance - is a long-term medical procedure in which blood, urine and other methods of collecting medical knowledge about an individual who may be exposed to work place hazards that can cause a health risk.