In occupational health and safety (OHS) terms, risk management is the process of recognising situations that have the potential to cause harm to people or property, and doing something to prevent a harmful situation occurring or a person being harmed.
Risk management is a process of well-defined steps that, when taken in sequence, allow you to make informed decisions about how best to avoid or control the impact of risks. Risk management involves:
- hazard identification identifying the problem
- risk assessment determining how serious the problem is
- risk elimination or control deciding what needs to be done to solve the problem
- reviewing risk assessments if, for instance, new information becomes available about the hazardous nature of a substance or process.
The Occupational Health and Safety Regulation 2001 imposes obligations on all employers to implement risk management processes in all workplaces. Employers must take reasonable care to identify any foreseeable hazard that has the potential to harm the health and safety of workers or anyone else in the workplace.
For more information, see 'related topics'.