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Provide a safe working environment
 
 

Introduction

Occupational Health & Safety Legislation

Hazard Management Plans

Risk Management

Maintaining & Improving OHS Policies

OHS Administration

   

Risk Management

Every workplace must be operated without placing any person at risk of injury or disease. To achieve this, everyone at the workplace has a responsibility to protect their own health and safety and that of other people.
An effective OHS policy should include an ongoing process to identify, assess and control workplace hazard that could endanger customers, visitors and staff.

Risk Areas

Six potential hazards areas in your store to be aware of are:
  • Electrical equipment including cables, and double adapters
  • Plant and equipment
  • Slips trips and falls
  • Housekeeping material and equipment
  • Ladders
  • Footwear and stairways
Activity Risk management

There is a three step formula that will assist you to manage health and safety in your store. The three steps are:

  • Identify the hazard
  • Assess the risk
  • Control the risk
Coach Your Team

Risk Management Cycle

Identify the Hazard

A hazard is anything that has the potential to cause harm. It could be a piece of equipment, a chemical substance, the work environment or a way of doing a task.

The first step in risk management is to look for any hazards that could cause injury to staff or the public. If everyone in the workplace is aware of OHS issues, hazard identification is a more efficient process. Ask your team what they see as hazards in their work areas.

There are seven major hazard identification methods:
  1. Safety audits
  2. Workplace inspections
  3. Incident investigations
  4. Team consultation
  5. Injury and illness records
  6. Health and environmental monitoring
  7. Complaints and observation
Wherever possible, all workplace hazards should be identified and then reported to the safety committee.

Hazard Identification Information Sources

Assess the Risk

Identifying and assessing hazards is the first step towards removing or modifying them.

The most important step is to identify the process that should be taken to control it as quickly as possible.

Risk is the possibility that a hazard will cause harm. When a hazard has been identified you must assess its potential to cause injury and/or financial loss. The greater the possibility of injury, the higher the risk is said to be.

When assessing risk consider:

Check Your Store Procedures
  • the severity of the potential injury or loss
  • how many people are exposed
  • in what way are they exposed
  • how often and for how long are they exposed
  • the intensity of the exposure
When answering these issues, a good starting point is to look at the accidents and near misses that have happened in the past.


Activity Hazard checklist

Risk Assessment Measures



Control the Risk

Once the hazard has been identified and assessed, you should implement control measures to reduce the risk of injury or disease.

Some methods are more effective than others depending on the hazard. Ideally, the most effective control should be implemented. Unfortunately, this is not always possible so an effective compromise must be found.

When developing a hazard control strategy the "hierarchy of control" should be used. The "hierarchy of control" uses the range of feasible options that are available. These options include :

  • eliminate the hazard (does it need to be there?)
  • substitute something with a lesser risk (is there something that does the same job, but is safer to work with?)
  • isolate the hazard from people (contain the hazard)
  • control the hazard by engineering (change the machine or process)
  • change the work practices (limit use or exposure, use good housekeeping)
  • supply protective equipment (after considering other options first)
Your Stores Approach
Once the controls have been introduced, carry out regular checks to make sure they are being used and are working. If not, you may need to use an alternate strategy.

Control Measures

Below is a sample of a risk assessment checklist for manual handling showing the relationship between the three steps.


PDF - Sample Risk Assessment for Manual Handling

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