How to Create a Formal Hazard Assessment

A formal hazard assessment is the basis of an occupational health and safety management system. Here are the five steps to creating one.

A formal hazard assessment is the basis of an organization's entire occupational health and safety management system. It identifies the hazards, measures the risk so hazards can be prioritized, and points to the necessary control measures. There are two levels of hazard assessment: the formal hazard assessment, prepared in advance, and the field-level hazard assessment, completed by the crew before work begins.

A formal hazard assessment is the foundation of the safety program. It involves identifying all the jobs and tasks performed by employees, assessing each task for hazards, prioritizing those hazards by level of risk, and implementing controls for the hazards identified.

The five steps

1. Create an inventory of jobs and tasks. List every job within the scope of the business, record how many workers perform each, and then list all the tasks performed as part of each job.
2. Identify and assess the hazards. Assess each task for its potential hazards and the associated risk, involving the workers who perform the task so nothing is overlooked. Rate the risk by asking what the consequences would be if the hazard is not controlled, how probable an incident is, and how often workers are exposed.
3. Prioritize the hazards. Determine an overall risk rating for each task and rank the tasks from high risk to low risk - that ranking is your critical task list.
4. Determine the controls. Assign methods of control to eliminate or reduce each hazard, using elimination, engineering, administrative, and PPE controls, or a combination.
5. Review the assessment. Date each formal hazard assessment and review it on a regular schedule - at least annually, and any time a new process, equipment, or significant site change is introduced.