One of the mainrolesofasafety leader is identifying, assessing, and mitigatingworkplace hazards.Whether it’s anobviousoccupational hazardormore implicitsafety hazards,safetyleadersmust do all they can toprotect their people on the worksite.
Creating a proactive approach and implementing a process to keep your teamsafe is a priority, and our team atEcoOnlineis here to help you deliver bettersafety results.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA),the mosteffective controls to mitigate workplace hazards includethefollowing 5 steps:
1. Collect existing information about workplace hazards
2. Inspect the workplace for safety and health hazards
3. Identify health-related hazards
4. Conduct incident investigations
5. Identify hazards associated with emergency situations
What Are Safety Hazards At a Workplace?
Let’s start off with the basics and define the term“safety hazard”.A safety hazard is anypotential riskon the worksitethatcouldcausea personharm.There are severaltypes of hazards in the workplace, regardless of industry, and it’s important to be able to identify and recognize them all.
The most common workplace hazards
Hazards on site can come in several different forms. Here’s a snapshot of somecommoncategories accordingto theCanadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety(CCOHS):
- Safety Hazards:Safety hazardsare any risks associated with the workplace including those associated withequipment and toolsonthe worksite,inaddition to potential hazards that could result in slips, trips, and falls.
- PhysicalHazards:Physical hazards are those that have the potential to harm someone physically causing injury, illness,or death.These range from temperature and noise to indoor air quality and radiation.
- Chemical Hazards:These hazards come from chemicals which could be potentially dangerousto humansand result inillness, injury, or death.
- Ergonomic Hazards:Ergonomic hazards are related to injuries resulting from the actions involved in a person’s role. This includes everything from lifting heavy equipment to typing on a computer.
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Hazard Identification and Assessment
Mitigating and eliminating hazards on the worksite is a priority for all health and safety professionals, as it is their duty to create a safe working environment for team members.This includes implementing a proper process forhazard assessmentsand identification.Ready to dive in?
Your journey to creating a safer work environmentstartshere!
Step 1: Collect Existing Information About Workplace Hazards
The first step to mitigate workplace hazards, according to OSHA, is to gather information about those which already exist on-site. This can be done in a multitude of ways including looking at hazards recorded in previous hazard assessments and inspections, analyzing job hazard analysis, speaking to front-line workers and team members about risks on-site, in addition to taking a deep dive into yourTotal Recordable InjuryFrequency(TRIF), Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) and Days Away,Restricted or Transferred (DART)ratesover time.
You can also collect information about hazards by looking at guidelines outlined by reputable organizations such as OSHA if you are located within the United States or Certificate of Recognition (COR) if you are within Canada. This will help ensure you are considering all possible safety hazards, even if they have never been recorded on your particular site.
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Step 2: Inspect the Workplace for Safety Hazards
Next, inspect your workplace for possible hazardswhich mayappearafter a certain amount of time has passed. For instance, new hazards can arise whenprocedures change, new tools areused, or job tasks are altered.
This is most certainly a team effort as allsites and locationsneeds to be inspected for all types of health andsafety hazards.Create a streamlinedlistand let your colleaguesknowwhat to look forsuch as hazards related to slips, trips, and falls, generalhousekeeping, and ergonomic issues,to name a few.Record all notable elements and start considering corrective actions that can be applied to mitigate risks.
Don’t forget to inspect your equipment as wellto ensureitisup to compliance standards. Check out our cutting-edge safety solution,EcoOnline Field iDto help you efficiently inspect assets.
Step 3: Identify Health-Related Hazards
After collecting information and inspecting your workplace, it’s time to identify health hazards. These can be more difficult to single out as they may be invisible to the naked eye, such as theever-present COVID-19 virus.Another element which makes this hard to identify issome hazards have immediate risks whereas others take time to appear.OSHArecommends taking the following steps to efficiently identify health-related hazards, withthose relatingto the coronavirus explored morecloselyhere.
As we previously mentioned, there are several types of hazards that could be found on a worksite which fall into the categories mentioned above. Take the time to review each category such as chemical hazards, ergonomic hazards, safety physical hazards, etc. to pinpoint any harmful chemicals, job activities,physicalelementsand so on that may pose a risk to your team members.
Remember to also be aware of any preexisting medical conditions team members may have when assessing health-related risks on-site. If you find a front-line worker has back problems, for instance, be wary of asking them to lift heavy objects.
Step 4: Conduct Incident Investigations
Now, it’s time to conduct incident investigations. This involves analyzing all incidents which have already occurred on-site and could potentially occur, ranging from near misses to actual injuries. The goal here is to establish what the source or root causes of the incident was and keeping an open mind that several factors could be at play.
Create a proper proceduretohelp pinpoint anoccupational hazard,involvingselected team members who conduct such investigations, recording all elements related to the incident. Once everything has been recorded such as what lead to the incident, what correctiveactions were taken, howknowledgeablewas the worker using these tools and carrying out this job task, etc.,it’s vital to beastransparent as possible and close the feedback loop with workers and management.Once everything has been analyzed,team members can take the proper measures to ensure this doesn’t happenagain.
Step 5: Identify Hazards Associated with Emergency Situations
The final step to efficiently identify and assess workplace hazards is to identify hazards that may not always occur daily, but instead may only arise during an emergency. For instance, what will happen if you have a COVID-19 outbreak on-site? This is something health and safety professionals have had to consider when modifying their health and safety programs and implementing new protocols.
In this step, consider scenarios which maybe unlikely but could still happen. This includes an illness outbreak like COVID-19, afire,an explosion, natural disasters, chemical spills, etc. If we have learned anything, it’s that we must plan for the unexpected to efficiently protect our people.
Our team atEcoOnlinewants to help youproperly identify and assessworkplace hazards,collectandgather the necessary data and information, and work to put the proper systems and procedures in placeto create a safer work environment.Speak to a safety expert and find out how our full-business solution can help by filling out the form below! Safety excellence starts now.
Resources:
- https://www.buildingsolutions.com/industry-insights/construction-safety-6-action-steps-to-identify-and-control-workplace-hazards
- https://ccohs.ca/topics/hazards/
- https://www.ehsinsight.com/blog/4-ways-to-control-hazards-and-risk-in-the-workplace
- https://fitforwork.org/blog/identifying-workplace-hazards/
- https://www.osha.gov/shpguidelines/hazard-Identification.html
- https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/safework
- http://phnews.org.au/six-steps-to-control-workplace-hazards/
