Organisations high-risk

Zenobia Talati is an Industrial/Organisational Psychology Masters and PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia Through her work as a research assistant, she has developed expertise in the areas of leadership, organisational culture/climate, workplace safely, safety leadership and proactivily. She has also co-authored a chapter on how leaders can improve employee safely behaviours and safety culture in high risk industries. 

High-frequency, high-consequence risks should (ideally) be avoided by managing them out of the organisation s risks portfolio. If this appears to be an uneconomic (or unpalatable) solution, then adequate insurance -i.e. the risk transfer option - must be arranged. 

For example, a systematic qualitative evaluation of an organisation s risk will result in some risks that are evaluated as high , some that are low and some that are insignificant , management decisions can then be made of a basis of risk vs cost. This qualitative method provides a basic evaiuation of risk and will allow an organisation to consider what may or may not be considered a reason-abiy practicai ievei of safety. 

The requirement here is that employers must establish procedures to be followed by workers if situations present serious and imminent danger, and under what circumstances they should stop work and move to a place of safety. Fundamentally, organisations emergency plans/procedures must cover foreseeable high risk situations, such as fire, explosion, etc., and ensure training of staff in these procedures. 

As with risk assessments, the administrative burden of producing a safety policy falls more heavily on the smaller organisation. Nevertheless, there is value for them in carrying out the exercise - small construction businesses tend to have proportionally more accidents to their workers, can engage in high-risk activities and will benefit from a review of the hazards their employees face. 

Systems of work often operate under the control of a permit system, known as a permit-to-work. Because of the administration needed to run them, permit systems are relatively uncommon in construction. They are more common in industries where the hazards are associated with high risk levels and their use is well established in many organisations. They require certain precautions to be taken in order to control them. Examples include hot work permits, electrical lock-out systems and vessel or other confined space entry systems. 

Organise essential high-risk tasks such as cutting and drilling at a central point... 

Once agreement has been reached on the severity and probability classifications, an idea of the risk can be obtained. A matrix approach is usually used to do this. An example is shown in Figure 4. An organisation may decide, as a matter of policy, to devote resources to addressing risks falling in the medium and high categories. 

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