This post was originally written as a newsletter article for ETNZ (June 2016)
“So, what is this thing called risk management? And why should I care?” I hear you ask (am yes, I am going to do something about your voices in my head!).
In the context of health and safety, risk management is systematically identifying hazards that could give rise to risks to health and safety, and managing these to be as low a risk as possible. Simply put, find what can hurt people and do things to stop this from happening.
And you should probably care because it’s a legal requirement that you do this if you are a PCBU, under the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 2015. And also because risk management is the cornerstone of all health and safety plans. You can have accident reporting plans, and worker participation plans, and PCBU consultation plans ‘til the cows come home but if you haven’t sorted out what can cause harm and how to stop that happening then people will still get injured or sick. Nail risk management and the rest will fall into place… more or less…
So, over the next few newsletters I’m going to go over how I deal with risk management. There is no one correct way to do this. This is one way, and there are plenty of others. And as always there are going to be large doses of my opinion in this. You’ve been warned…
If I’m doing a risk a management plan on a larger show or event, or I’m working on a company’s systems, or when there’s a need to report up to managers on what the risks in the workplace are, then I generally break the risk management process into 5 steps. This being
- Identify the hazards and their associated risks.
- Assess the risks.
- Evaluated the risks.
- Manage / control the risks.
- Monitor the controls.
However, if it is a small show or event where I’m pretty much going to be dealing with each risk regardless of size, then I may reduce this down to 3 steps.
- Identify the hazards and their associated risks.
- Manage / control the risks.
- Monitor the controls.
There’s nothing in the law that says I have to do a risk assessment. It’s just a very useful tool to identify priorities, and get an accurate picture of what the likelihood of risks occurring is and what the possible harm could be. This helps prioritise actions and helps managers prioritise resources. It is also a good way to gauge how well your controls are working and to keep track of risk management across the whole business or undertaking.
Anyway, this article will be about Step 1.
STEP ONE of my risk management is identifying hazards and the contexts that cause them to become risks.
This bit is in the law. The Health and Safety at Work (HSWA) regulations state that all PCBUs “have a duty to identify hazards that could give rise to reasonably foreseeable risks to health and safety”.
So what exactly are we talking about here?
Lets start with hazards. Hazards are any source of potential harm (and for the purposes of health and safety, harm = injury or illness). In theatres a hazard could be,
- A thing e.g. a sharp prop (… a knife, a sword, a pair of scissors…);
- A substance e.g. water on the stage floor (… I assume it’s water…)
- A material e.g. mdf board (…solid it’s fine, but the dust is nasty when inhaled…).
- An energy source e.g. electricity (… perfectly safe, usually…);
- A process e.g. rigging off a ladder (…does a nose count as a point of contact?…)
- A practice e.g. break dancing (… oh to be 15 again…); or
- A condition e.g. fatigue (… too tired not to take that short-cut…)
And then there are risks. A risk is when exposure to a hazard could possibly cause harm. So,
- A pair of scissors (hazard) sitting in a drawer becomes a risk when they are taken out and handed to an actor who will possibly, in a moment of frivolous excitement, decided to run with them.
- A puddle of water on the stage (hazard) becomes a risk when there’s the possibility of someone stepping into it and slipping.
- A puddle of water on the stage (hazard) also becomes a different risk when there’s the possibility of it getting into electrical equipment.
- Break dancing (hazard) becomes a risk when there’s the possibility of someone closer in age to 50 than 15 giving it a go… and failing.
- A set made of mdf (hazard) becomes a risk when there is a possibility that the dust from cutting it to size will be inhaled.
And so on…
So how do I go about identifying hazards and their risks?
I start by breaking the workplace/ activity/ gig/ production into manageable chunks. If it is an event I might have headings that include structures, production elements, site, traffic management, crowd management, environment and weather, crew etc. If it is a play I might have headings that include set, props /costumes, lights & sound, performance elements, venue, construction, pack-in/pack-out etc.
Then, under each heading I systematically identify what is in each area that could cause harm and the circumstances that would cause those things to become risks to heath and safety. Consultation with people in charge of a particular area is always helpful at this stage to capture all the hazards and risks.
And then I write it all down. Boom, step one done!
Coming up in Health and Safety 101, the laws, and best practice around risks controls… stay tuned!
