An employer has an obligation to identify and assess foreseeable hazards. If it is not reasonably practicable to eliminate the risk, the employer must take steps to control the risk.

Risk management is covered in detail in Chapter 2 of the OHS Regulation 2001. Other chapters also refer to obligations of risk management as they apply to specific hazards, activities or places of work.

Risk management involves assessing the harm of those hazards. It is the process of:

• Identifying any foreseeable hazard - anything in the workplace that has potential to harm anyone at the workplace, eg moving parts in machinery, toxic chemicals, manual handling tasks.
• Assessing the risk from the hazard - finding out how significant the risk is eg will it cause a serious injury, illness or death and how likely is this to occur?
• Eliminating the hazard or if this is not possible, controlling the risk from the hazard - implementing strategies to eliminate or control the hazard eg. design equipment differently, add machine guards, use safer chemicals, providing lifting devices to minimise manual handling or use personal protective equipment.

Note: This phase is more commonly referred to simply as risk control but the possible elimination of the hazard(s) must be considered before risk control is undertaken.

• Reviewing risk assessment – to monitor and improve control measures and find safer ways of doing things. (Clause 9 of the OHS Regulation)