We like to think of ourselves as scientists. After all, safety officers love spreadsheets and taking down figures and expressions to represent risks and hazards in a worksite, and to track incidents with empirical values so as to try to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent the same issue from occurring in the future.
While there is a science to some of this, risk assessment is really more of an art form, at least according to a recent article by Bruce Lyon and Georgi Popov, which appeared in the March 2016 issue of Professional Safety magazine.
An Art of Safety Science
Lyon and Popov wrote an extensive article (with scientific-y charts) talking about the “art” of risk assessment and discussing ways to combine and integrate various risk assessment methods to creatively and thoroughly assess various risks in a way that fits a particular industry and company culture.
This idea takes the science, uses art to modify it, and then turns it into a more precise science, in effect. The authors of the piece basically said that there is no re-invention of the wheel here; they are not suggesting new methods that come out of existing methods, but rather talk about existing methods and modifying or combining them in a way that would more effectively tell a story from the angle that works best for your company.
The point of any risk assessment, the authors write, is to get to the heart of a risk and know it intimately – understanding what causes the risk, the type of risk, possible effects and the odds of it happening, and to look at whether the safety protocols in place are adequate to sufficiently address the risk or what other controls or mitigation could be added if the risk is too pronounced.
Risk-centrism
Lyon and Popov wrote about the various ways that existing risk assessment methods can be combined and modified to fit the needs of each industry and company so that the best work can be done to determine the extent of the risks that are prevalent and come up with the best tools to minimize those risks and maximize safety.
Sometimes, the assessment methods that are in place are still effective, but they tend to need adaptation to fit the current economy and worksite realities that did not exist two and three decades ago. It’s not that we need to change the dynamics by which we assess risk, but sometimes we need to look at our methods from a different angle to be able to better understand the risks so we can have a 21st-century approach.
What’s the real issue here? The real issue, which Lyon and Popov consider through the article, is for companies to understand the difference between risk and hazard and be risk-centric when it comes to assessments. This means understanding that a risk of a fatal incident is within the “probable” range and taking steps to evaluate the probability and possible causes, then deciding if controls need to be included in the safety protocol to address this risk.
In future posts, we will go more in-depth into this article by dissecting the different pieces and help you better understand how a good risk assessment can be done using parts of different methods in combination to develop a more cohesive picture of risk in your workplace, regardless of industry.