Are You Doing Everything You Can to Protect Your Workers?
It's an uncomfortable question, but worth asking honestly: if one of your employees were seriously injured tomorrow, could you say with confidence that you'd done everything reasonably practicable to prevent it? Under UK health and safety law, that's exactly the standard employers are held to — and falling short doesn't just risk enforcement action from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), it risks someone's health, livelihood, or life.
The Five Steps to Risk Assessment
The HSE's well-established approach to risk assessment breaks the process down into five practical steps:
- Identify the hazards — walk around the workplace and think about what could realistically cause harm
- Decide who might be harmed and how — employees, contractors, visitors, members of the public
- Evaluate the risks and decide on control measures — what's already in place, and what more needs to be done
- Record your findings — and put the control measures into practice
- Review your assessment — and update it whenever something changes
This structured approach applies whether you're assessing an office, a warehouse, or a construction site — the steps are the same, even if the hazards look very different.
Why Awareness Matters as Much as Policy
Having a risk assessment on file isn't enough on its own — it only protects people if the workforce understands the hazards it identifies and follows the controls it sets out. This is especially true in construction and civil engineering, where the pace of work and repetitive tasks can lead to complacency. Training helps build a workforce that recognises hazards instinctively, rather than one that relies solely on a document in a folder.
Training That Supports Safer Workplaces
- Risk Assessment — a practical introduction to carrying out and recording risk assessments
- Introduction to Risk Assessment — an accessible starting point for those new to the process
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is legally responsible for risk assessments?
Under UK health and safety law, the employer carries the legal duty — but in practice, this is often delegated to managers, supervisors or a dedicated health and safety lead, who need appropriate training to carry it out competently.
How often should risk assessments be reviewed?
Whenever something changes — new equipment, new processes, a near miss or accident, or new staff — and periodically even if nothing obvious has changed, to make sure the assessment still reflects how work is actually done.
Does a risk assessment need to be written down?
If you employ five or more people, you're legally required to record the significant findings of your risk assessments. Even for smaller businesses, recording findings is good practice and helps demonstrate compliance.