Common Reason to Fail Risk Assessment

Common Reason to Fail Risk Assessment

What is failure mode in risk assessment?

Common Reason to Fail Risk Assessment : In order to prevent accidents, the best process among the safety procedures at the workplace is to do risk assessment. By this we identify potential threats, so that the kind of change that is needed to avoid them can be done.

Risk assessment at the working site is certainly one of the essential procedures but it is not the last option to prevent accidents. Because even after doing risk assessment, accidents happen.

Therefore, after performing the risk assessment procedure, if an accident occurs, then efforts should be made to find out the shortcomings of the risk assessment and then rectify it.

Whoever has done the risk assessment should ask himself why the risk assessment failed? Such questions will help in highlighting the shortcomings of the risk assessment and will point towards finding the root cause of the shortfall, which will lead to better chances of improvement.

Through this post, we will review five reasons why risk assessment fails, which will provide risk assessors a lesson on how to improve the procedures during risk assessment which will help in making it safer.

Why does Risk Assessment Fail?

There is a mistake somewhere behind the failure of Risk Assessment. Where does the mistake go and what mistake does the risk assessor make? Let’s consider it sequentially today.

1. No Formalized Process

The biggest mistake made by a safety professional is that he starts doing risk assessment without doing any formal process. He should gather a group of people and speak to find out the possible risks at that work place. And the potential risks that everyone has detected should be written down.

All possible problems that arise from such a process can be discovered, ie it can be an effective way of detecting risks. But this kind of procedure is not enough to know all the risks.

Yes of course it can help to look at the potential threats more holistically. The biggest advantage of this is that you will be saved from avoiding any kind of problem.

The biggest advantage of this process is to ensure that which potential hazards are left out, it can proceed faster by having a formal process of locating the risks. And it helps in completing the work on time.

This procedure is definitely very important because risk assessment is an important step in taking up a new job or other type of activities. And if it is not corrected, then risk assessment will become a reason for the delay of any work.

2. No Defined Acceptable Risk Levels

All the safety professionals or leaders within the company who think about facilities to workers, think that their goal should be to eliminate the risk of all the work that is to be done.

It may be a good idea but in reality it may not be real. Because after finding the risk of one, others will also become dependent on it. Which can prove fatal in the course of work.

This is the reason that before completing the risk assessment before any work, it is necessary to define well what is the level of risk in the facilities provided to the employees.

Assessment of risk without recognizing the risk at work place is the biggest reason for failure of risk assessment, as it can go on indefinitely.

By the way, the risk depends on the place where the work is being done and we see that either this risk decreases or increases with the change of location.

Keeping this in mind, all the facilities provided to work need to be focused on trying to reach the level of risks.

3. Poor Timing of the Risk Assessment

One of the most common reasons for failure of Risk Assessment is that the assessment of potential hazards is being done at the wrong time. Sometimes risk assessment at workplace is done only after the work has started, which is very difficult or costly to change from dealing with the hazards.

This is why it becomes so important to ascertain that when should the risk assessment be done? The best time to do this should be just before lunch during work.

Here I would like to clarify some important times of doing risk assessment, which risk assessment team should keep an eye on the risks and provide inputs accordingly.

a. Planning Stage

Including a risk assessment team in that plan is a great way to find out the potential hazards if any new product or process is being planned.

If we do this then to a great extent the loss due to risks can be controlled, which is usually associated with risk management. And if this is done at the time of planning the work, it will leave more impact.

b. Finalize Plan

When planning the work and it is in its final stage or it is hot then risk assessment should be done. The biggest advantage of this is that all the specific risks related to that work can be identified, which are available in the plan of the work. This should be done to eliminate or reduce the level of risks before the actual work begins.

c. Production Implementation

If any new work or production is started within the industry, then the risk assessment team needs to review that work from time to time, and there is a need to keep an eye on the possible hazards during the work.

During the work it should also be observed whether the training given to deal with Khatron during the work is sufficient or not. Or is there any danger left in the previous work, which can cause an accident in the present work.

d. Pre-Launch

When everything is live or let’s say work is about to start, the risks should be assessed even at the last minute. If all the steps are completed properly then it will be a very short process and should not involve any risk assessment.

e. Post-Launch

The risks should be assessed even after some time when the work has been started. This could be the day the job started, a week later, or even more than a month later. This can be a good way to know the risk. It may be that such risks have not come to mind while planning the work. Which are visible after operation.

4. Wrong Team Members

Risk assessment can create problems if there is no competent person in the Risk Assessment Team. The first problem occurs when the team does not include those members who come from the affected area.

That is, the area in which the risk assessment is done. Because no one else would know that work area better than the person working there.

In the place where the risk assessment is to be done, if none are included, then the people doing the review start doing the assessment without experiencing the activities in that area, often ignoring the hazards .

5. No Authority

If Risk Assessment does not have the right to make any changes, then it becomes more likely to fail. Its biggest disadvantage is that risk assessment loses all its meaning.

Because after knowing the potential hazards, recommendations are needed to remove them. Because the assessors have no authority. Therefore, those who are members of the team ignore minor potential threats, which later becomes the cause of a big threat.

Therefore it is essential that the risk assessment team should also have a member who can take all kinds of action related to change. Because no one knows when a change in action may be needed when evaluating risks.