Manage your hazards onsite

Walk the site with a worker or subcontractor and look for anything that could seriously harm the health or safety of your people and anyone else on site. Think about hazards that hurt straight away, like falls from height, and the ones that build up over time, like asbestos exposure leading to asbestosis. Our hazard identification guide shows you what to look for.

Now rate the risk each hazard carries. This is a good time in your health and safety planning to talk with your workers. They know the jobs, how someone could get hurt and which controls are working and which aren’t. They often have good ideas for improvements, so ask them.

To set the risk level, work out how likely the harm is and how serious the injury could be. The risk assessment matrix below makes that rating quick.

Once you have identified the level of risk, you must do what is reasonable and practical to eliminate it. Where it can’t be eliminated, minimise it by choosing the best controls for the situation – the better the control, the lower the risk.

Common controls, such as Codes of Practice, guidelines and standard procedures can be applied to common risks. Remember to talk to subbies and anyone else on site about risks resulting from your work.

If you can’t eliminate a common risk, then apply common control measures. Use a risk register to record your common hazards and controls. If you can’t eliminate a specified risk and it is covered by regulations or is high-risk, apply the ‘hierarchy of controls’ and use a Task Analysis or a Safe Work Method Statement.

Controls can be ordered from most effective to least effective. This is called the “Hierarchy of Controls”. The most effective control is one that eliminates the risk, the least effective control is one that just minimises it, such as using PPE. Substitute, isolate and engineer are classed as being as equally effective. You will often need to use multiple controls on a single risk.

After putting controls in place, go back and reassess the level of risk. You may not always get your controls right the first time. If the new level of risk is still too high, go back and put different controls in place, then reassess.

You’ll need to review your controls regularly to:

• Ensure your planned controls are being used.
• Check that controls are effective.
• Ensure your risk level estimate is correct.
• Check-in with workers if controls are convenient and effective.
• Monitor exposure to health.
• Identify new or different work activities and risks.
• Consider if stronger controls are now possible.

Once your risks are identified and your controls are in place, make sure you document them in an easy-to-understand manner in a Site/Job Hazard and Risk Register.

This summary of site hazards and steps taken to control them should be available at all times for PCBUs to use when inducting new contractors, sub-contractors or visitors to a site. A Site/Job Hazard and Risk Register can be downloaded for free here.