It’s the beginning of 2024, and no better time to ensure your hazard assessments are up to date for the new year ahead! Let this be a friendly reminder to schedule your annual review of your formal hazard assessments, which you may also call your JSAs, TRAs, etc. Reviewing and updating your hazard assessments helps ensure a safe and healthy workplace, as they are the core of every organization’s OH&S program. No matter how small or large your company is, or the type of work that you do – there will always be situations, conditions, and things that may pose a threat to the health and safety of all personnel and others in the vicinity.
What is a Formal Hazard Assessment?
A formal hazard assessment takes a close look at the overall operations of an organization to identify hazards and develop, implement, and monitor related controls. Worker jobs or types of work are broken down into separate tasks. Formal hazard assessments are detailed, can involve many people, and will require time to complete. This process is meant to identify and eliminate hazards. Where it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate the hazard, controls must be implemented and monitored.
Who should participate?
The entire team! An employer must involve affected workers in the hazard assessment process and in the control or elimination of the hazards identified. If you have a health and safety committee and/or representative be sure to get them involved too, as one of their duties is to participate in hazard assessments.
Here are some basic steps to keep in mind while creating/reviewing your Formal Hazard Assessments:
1. Make an inventory of all the positions within the company.
2. Determine which tasks the employees in each position do.
3. List all work tasks or activities for each job.
4. Identify any health and safety hazards related to each task or activity.
5. Assess each individual hazard for risk using your company’s risk assessment matrix.
6. Find ways to eliminate or control the hazards following the hierarchy of controls.
7. Implement the selected controls.
8. Communicate the hazards and follow the controls.
9. Monitor effectiveness of controls. Ensure the controls are effectively controlling the hazards and have not introduced new hazards into the workplace.
10. Review and revise the hazard assessments on a regular basis.
Contributing Factors to consider when thinking about hazards and ways to eliminate/control them:
1. People – Are they well trained/competent in performing the work?
2. Equipment – Are manufacturers specifications and operating instructions being followed?
3. Materials – Are they being handled, stored, and disposed properly?
4. Environment – Does the work environment introduce any health and safety hazards?
Workplace hazard categories and some examples to consider when identifying health and safety hazards:
Health Hazard – is anything that could harm someone’s health, either immediately or over time.
Safety Hazard – is anything that could cause injury or damage. An injury caused by a safety hazard is usually immediate.
1. Physical Hazards – Slippery/uneven surfaces, repetitive motions, extreme temperatures, noise, poor lighting, working around vehicles, working at heights, vibration, lifting heavy loads, working around moving equipment.
2. Chemical Hazards – Cleaning products/solvents, battery acid, vapour (spray paint), hazardous merchandise, fumes, gases (carbon monoxide), waste products from a process.
3. Biological Hazards – Viruses, mould, bacteria, body fluids, sewage, allergens, animal/pet waste.
4. Psychosocial Hazards – Harassment (may include violence), stress, fatigue, shift work, working alone, work-life conflict, operational or process changes.
Often, health hazards and psychosocial hazards get overlooked because they are not as immediately evident as the safety hazards. Take some time to really look at the operations to ensure all types of hazards are being identified.
Your workplace already has existing tools and information to help identify hazards for your FHAs, some examples of where you could find this information would be in your hazard reports, incident reports, equipment preventative maintenance records, and inspections. Be sure to share the results to all affected workers so they are aware of all the hazards associated with their job and follow/use the controls in place, to make the workplace safe for everyone!