Hazard identification can be a bit of a balancing act. You want to make sure that all the hazards are identified, but you don’t want to end up with an excessively long list of hazards to trawl through, taking up too much time and resources.

I’m going to go over some of the common mistakes I see being made with the hazards identification stage of the risk assessment process.

Just before I get into it, a quick reminder of the overall risk assessment process:

1. Identify the hazards
2. Decide who might be harmed (and how)
3. Evaluate the risk and select controls
4. Record and implement
5. Review and update as necessary

Here are the common pitfalls I see people fall into with step 1 (Identify the hazards):

1. Not involving enough people.

There’s really no need to attempt to build a hazard profile across an entire organisation or department all on your own. You’ll get far better results (and keep your own stress levels under control) by utilising the skills, knowledge and experience of  your team.

The people who actually do a particular job can often bring your attention to hazards you might otherwise have missed. The added bonus is that this collaborative approach can help to demonstrate that you’re consulting with people with regard to health and safety matters, which is a legal requirement.

2. Not being systematic.

The range and number of hazards in a typical workplace means there is the possibility that some might get missed, unless an efficient, systematic approach is adopted. To help with this, use common hazard categories, such as:

• mechanical
• physical
• chemical
• biological
• psycho-social
• ergonomic
• environmental

This will allow you to focus in on a particular group of hazards at a time.

Also, when appropriate, use a range of techniques and information sources to help you with hazard identification. You could probably list quite a few of the hazards in your workplace during a desktop exercise, but there will be others that might only become noticeable through direct observation of work activities. Even then, if it’s not a work activity that you personally engage in on a regular basis, you still might miss some of the less obvious hazards. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important to talk to those people who actually do the work and interact directly with the hazards. Asking them for their valuable input can be very beneficial.

• Other information sources include:
• HSE Approved Codes of Practice and Guidance
• Manufacturers and suppliers information
• Accident and near-miss reports
• Routine monitoring (inspections and audits etc.)
• Health surveillance
• Staff and/or public complaints
• Departmental meetings

3. Copying and pasting from generic risk assessments.

You can find risk assessments on-line for any number of different hazards. And you might have existing risk assessments within the business that identify various hazards.

Whilst these documents can be of value when it comes to identifying hazards, there’s little to be gained by simply copying and pasting from these various sources without consideration of the actual relevance and applicability of the information.

4. Not prioritising.

The third stage of risk assessment - evaluating the risk, will provide the opportunity to assign a score to each hazard. This will enable you allocate resources to the most significant areas of risk and not get distracted with the relatively trivial.

However, there is much to be gained from beginning this prioritisation process during the hazard identification stage. As you are working through the task of identifying hazards, exercise judgment and discretion to ensure you don’t end up at the end of the process with a list inflated with inconsequential hazards to go forward to the next stages of the process. This would be a huge waste of time and resources and will divert attention away from where it is really needed - the hazards that present a real risk of harm.

5. Missing difficult to spot hazards.

Some hazards are quite obvious…

• an unguarded piece of machinery
• a blocked fire escape
• someone working on a roof with no fall prevention/ arrest equipment

Some are a little more tricky to spot though. This might be because the harm that the hazard causes does not manifest itself immediately, but instead take a long time (sometimes, many years) to become apparent. A few examples…

• symptoms of lung disease due to asbestos may not show up until decades after inhalation of the fibres
• permanent hearing damage is usually caused by exposure to only moderately loud noise over a period of years
• absorption of lead via skin contact with certain substances might only be detectable in the early stages via blood testing

You can avoid missing difficult to spot hazards by ensuring that people who conduct risk assessments are competent to do so. The IOSH Managing Safely course covers the methodology of risk assessment and control and can be delivered on company premises, minimising costs and inconvenience.

So, these are just a few of the more common problems I come across when it comes to hazard identification.