Health and Safety Risk Assessment

By Morgan Green

Risk assessment is the thorough inspection of a facility with a fine-toothed comb, so to speak, to prevent a hazardous situation from developing. He or she must come up with different strategies within written assessment regulations to greatly reduce the potential for potential hazards as much as possible. Unfortunately, it is not possible for a risk assessor to eliminate all safety risks, but they can do their best to ensure that blatant hazardous conditions are corrected and are less likely to occur.

Competence Stages

In order for a risk assessor's work to be considered satisfactory he or she must become competent while performing a risk assessment. Becoming a competent risk assessor does take time, however. Human beings typically learn in stages. Once they make the conscious effort to learn something new, all that is usually needed is to maintain what they've learned by repeating various steps on a consistent basis to become efficient at it. The development of competence method, developed by the psychologist Abraham Maslow, includes the following four stages.

First Stage

The first stage- you don't know what it is you don't know yet. Learning something new is like trying to understand a foreign language. The average individual cannot yet make sense of what they are learning until a substantial amount of time has passed. This stage describes an individual as being unconsciously incompetent.

Second Stage

Stage 2- The individual becomes consciously incompetent. He or she acknowledges that they don't possess the proper knowledge or skills required. This will motivate them to take necessary measures to learn the ins and outs of their field. The individual training to be a risk assessor will honestly analyse their strengths and weaknesses and make necessary improvements in the required skills they will need to use effectively.

Third Stage

Third stage- you complete the initial stages of learning. The individual has successfully completed their training course and is now considered to be consciously competent. The individual continues to make visible progress by quickly remembering appropriate actions to take when they encounter various risk assessment situations.

Fourth Stage

Fourth stage- you know what you are doing, and have practised frequently. When the individual can demonstrate satisfactory skills on a consistent basis they are considered to be unconsciously competent. The risk assessor is highly confident in their ability to deliver safety precautions in many different scenarios.

Training

A professional risk assessor will always need to learn additional requirements to carry out their job duties efficiently. They should never think that they know everything there is to know about their job. When it comes to safety there can be no room for error! Continual education classes are regularly scheduled to help a professional risk assessor remain competent in their field. This is also known as continual professional development.

Risk Assessment

According to guidelines, the only qualification required to perform a risk assessment is for the person involved to be competent. The assessor should be able to analyse any risks in relation to work activities. They should also possess the authority and the expertise to collect all the relevant data as well as possess the skills and knowledge to make informative decisions about how to control exposure.

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