Risk assessments are the responsibility of every single person working in an organisation, not just the health and safety manager, and employees have a legal responsibility to cooperate with their employer’s efforts to improve health and safety and to look out for each other.
So how can you get your staff to take this on board, and ensure the health and safety of everyone? Although it’s a necessity to train your staff to do this, it can sometimes be difficult to engage them. After all, can’t sitting and watching a DVD sometimes be seen as a bit boring? Not any more, says Safety Media. It has made sure your staff will become interested and involved in risk assessment in its new interactive DVD: ‘Five steps – Risk Assessment in your Workplace,’ which takes a totally different approach to risk assessment training.
This interactive DVD portrays a series of potentially hazardous scenarios and invites the viewer to choose the correct solution by pressing a button on their remote control. By becoming actively involved in watching the DVD, viewers are more likely to retain the information transmitted by it, and less likely to let their attention wander, says the firm. Opportunities can also be created for discussion during the training session if the ‘wrong’ answers are chosen.
The five steps covered by the DVD closely follow HSE guidance and show viewers how to actively comply with its advice. Safety Media produced the DVD after five different needs were identified.
Step 1 – The need to identify potential hazards in the workplace. This is a vital step – a risk assessment cannot be conducted if the potential hazard has not been identified. The DVD invites you to observe a typical workplace scenario and spot potential hazards. You are asked how many hazards you saw. Each hazard is then explained in detail and the viewer given guidance on different ways of identifying them.
Step 2 – The need to decide who might be at risk of harm and how. You need to be clear about who might be harmed by each hazard, and how they might be harmed, so you can identify the best way of managing the risk. The DVD explains this in detail after viewers have watched an imagined situation and chosen one of several options.
Step 3 – The need to evaluate risks and decide precautions. The law requires you to do everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect both employees and non-employees from harm. The DVD looks at a hazardous situation and asks what action you should take, giving you three choices on what you should do to deal with a hazard. It explains how to evaluate the risks and mitigate them.
Step 4 – The need to record findings and implement them. The DVD gives examples of which hazards need to be recorded and communicated, and which are simply common sense. It explains how to record your findings, and how to prioritise risks and hence reduce them.
Step 5 – The need to review risk assessments regularly and update them if necessary, since the conditions in workplaces do not remain the same. The DVD gives essential guidance on how this can be done.
For £139 (plus P&P and VAT) you will receive the DVD along with 10 Risk Assessment Training Booklets and 50 Risk Assessment Forms.
