Advanced Risk Assessment and Practical Application

Level 1 training teaches you to recognise a hazard and stop before continuing into danger. A systematic hazard identification and risk assessment process is what an organization uses to find hazards across a whole site or scope of work, not just react to the one in front of you.

This kind of assessment starts by defining its scope, including the area, process or project phase, the period covered and the people involved. The team then reviews the activities within that scope using a consistent method.

Hazard identification should use direct observation, incident and near-miss records, manufacturer information, applicable law and input from the people doing the work. Worker participation helps the assessment reflect work as performed, including changes and constraints that may not appear in a procedure.

Once hazards are identified, each one is assessed for likelihood and severity using the organization's approved risk matrix, the same educational approach introduced in the Level 1 hazard-recognition course, now applied at the scale of a full work area rather than a single observation.

This kind of assessment is a living document, not a filing exercise. It is reviewed when the scope of work changes, when new equipment or materials are introduced, after an incident or near miss, and on a scheduled interval set by the organization's own system, exactly the kind of ongoing review ISO 45001 requires of hazard identification and risk assessment as a management system activity.

Organizations use different names for structured risk assessment. Some BP contractor material uses HITRA, Hazard Identification and Task Risk Assessment. SLB material uses HARC, Hazard Analysis and Risk Control. These are company-specific examples, not universal standards. Use the method, terminology and approval process required by your organization.

The practical output of a hazard identification and risk assessment process is usually a hazard and risk register: a document that pairs each identified hazard with its assessed risk and the controls selected to manage it. Where the assessment itself is the process of finding and rating hazards, the register is usually the working document that carries that information forward into day-to-day site control, often the one referenced during a permit-to-work or a toolbox talk.

Where that process and its register work at the level of a site or scope of work, Job Safety Analysis, also called Job Hazard Analysis, works at the level of a single task. A JSA breaks a job into its individual steps, in the order they are actually performed, and asks what could go wrong at each one and what control addresses it, before the work starts.

Worked example: replacing a valve on a live process line

1. Isolate and lock out the line. Hazard: stored energy or residual pressure. Control: verified isolation, lockout-tagout, and a bleed-down check before work begins.
2. Remove the old valve. Hazard: manual handling, sharp edges, residual fluid. Control: correct lifting technique or mechanical aid, gloves rated for the fluid, drip containment.
3. Fit the new valve. Hazard: incorrect torque, misalignment. Control: torque specification confirmed, correct tooling, competent fitter.
4. Reinstate and test. Hazard: uncontrolled pressurisation. Control: gradual pressure-up under supervision, leak check before returning to service.

Each step gets its own hazard and its own control, not one general statement covering the whole job. That step-by-step discipline is what makes a JSA useful at the point of work, where a full hazard and risk register is too broad to consult line by line.

After identifying and rating a hazard, select controls and verify that they are installed, available and effective at the point of work.

Apply the hierarchy of controls in order of preference, not convenience: eliminate the hazard where possible, substitute it with something less hazardous, use engineering controls that remove reliance on individual behaviour, then administrative controls, and personal protective equipment last, as the layer that protects the individual after everything upstream of it has already been tried.

A documented control does not reduce risk unless it is implemented and works as intended. Before starting, verify barriers, ventilation, isolation, permits and other required controls. Continue checking controls when conditions can change during the task.

A control's adequacy also has to match the severity of what it is controlling. A minor, easily reversible hazard may be reasonably managed with a single administrative control. A hazard with a realistic chance of serious injury or worse generally needs more than one independent layer of control, so that the failure of any single measure does not remove all protection at once.

Elimination can remove a specific hazard. Where a hazard remains, residual risk is the risk left after controls are applied. The organization must decide whether that risk is acceptable under its approved criteria and authorization process.

Re-rate the risk using the same approved matrix and its definitions. Do not reduce severity automatically because controls exist. Some controls reduce likelihood, some reduce the possible consequence, and some affect both. If residual risk remains high or unacceptable, add or strengthen controls and obtain the required authorization before work proceeds.

Practical exercise

Before reading the discussion below, work through this scenario yourself: a contractor needs to carry out hot work, welding, inside a confined tank that previously held flammable material. List the hazards you would expect, the controls you would require before work starts, and what residual risk you would still flag for a competent person's sign-off.

This scenario requires a task-specific assessment by competent people. Controls may include verified isolation; cleaning and purging; atmospheric testing for oxygen, flammable gases or vapours and relevant toxic substances; suitable ventilation; confined-space and hot-work authorization; standby and rescue arrangements; fire prevention; and monitoring at the frequency required by the assessment and site procedure. Work must not begin until measured results meet the approved acceptance criteria. Stop and reassess if the atmosphere, ventilation, isolation or work conditions change.

Myaser HSE Hub's Risk Assessment Tool lets you build, save and export a structured risk assessment using this same likelihood-and-severity method, so you can apply what this lesson covers to a real task rather than only in theory.

Professional references

• OSHA: Job Hazard Analysis
• OSHA: Hazard prevention and control
• UK HSE: Asphyxiation hazards in welding and allied processes
• ISO: ISO 45001 occupational health and safety management systems
• BP US Terminals and Pipelines: HITRA contractor material
• SLB: HARC terminology example