The AIHS will be publishing a series of news stories through October to support the four themes of National Safe Work Month. The third week (14-21 October) focuses on risk management fundamentals.
While risk is a core concept in OHS practice, it is important to take a holistic approach to risk management and consider cultural and organisational factors on top of purely technical frameworks.
“Risk is the principle that underlies our legislation, so in many ways, risk is bread and butter to OHS professionals,” said Jan Hayes, a professor at RMIT University with 30 years’ experience in safety and risk management.
“The only warning I would give is that thinking about health and safety in risk terms can mean that issues are considered only in a very technical way. I have seen some organisations where use of a risk-based framework effectively hides all the cultural and organisational contributors to risk,” said Hayes, who is also a co-author of the OHS risk and decision-making chapter in the OHS Body of Knowledge.
“Remember risk is a concept – a way of looking at the world. It’s not just an equation.”
Hayes observed that modern businesses are under increasing pressure from various directions, which means that OHS professionals need to be on the front foot in dealing with a wide range of new and changed risks.
“Psychosocial risk is an obvious example but there are others. Fatigue management is becoming an issue in more and more organisations, not only for your own employees, but also for contractors that your organisation uses,” she said.
“Decarbonisation and the energy transition might mean that your organisation is using new technology – new to you or even newly developed. This is why uncertainty is the new buzz word in risk management circles with some risk assessment methods being adjusted so that outputs include an indication of the strength of knowledge on which an assessment of risk is based,” said Hayes, who explained that this means that uncertainty can be taken into account in decision-making.
New technologies are being employed in risk management, with AI applications such as machine learning from incident reports, starting to make an impact, she added.
There are a number of important considerations for OHS professionals in this, according to Hayes, who said the first thing in trying to influence decision-makers about OHS issues and risks is to come to important conversations with a proposed course of action, and not just a problem.
“If you are expecting pushback, it’s usually best to anticipate how things look from the decision-maker’s perspective and try to present your case in the most persuasive way when looking from that perspective,” she said.
“Technical arguments about risk are important but you might also draw on a range of justifications including from a moral perspective (we don’t want to hurt people), a legal/compliance perspective (we have a legal duty or the standard requires etc) or a business perspective (an accident would interrupt production, impact our customers, cost a lot etc).
“I don’t mean talking in generalities, but specifically what is it that your proposed expenditure would avoid?”
Depending on what the hazard is, Hayes said a related strategy can be to provide evidence that the hazard is real and has happened. This means referring to past accidents or incidents to show how bad things could be if the hazard is not controlled sufficiently.
“This must be done carefully so you don’t get a reputation for always saying that the sky is falling but use of relevant examples can be an effective way to get a message across,” said Hayes.
“A third strategy can be to enrol others in support of your position. This might include operations or maintenance personnel or anyone else with an interest in reducing the risk in question.”