If hazards are listed, they should be in the order of the most to the least serious, eg. In assessing risks, consideration should be given to the state of knowledge about the frequency of injury or disease, the duration of exposure to injury or disease sources and the likely severity of the outcomes. Knowledge gained from similar workplaces or similar processes may be relevant to this risk assessment. Assessing these three factors will indicate the probability or likelihood of injury or harm occurring to workers involved in a particular work process. It will also indicate the likely severity of this harm.
Risk assessment requires good judgement and awareness of the potential risks of a work process.
A person undertaking a risk assessment must have knowledge and experience of the work process. The task may be complicated by incomplete data or incomplete information regarding hazards of a work process. In some cases it may be necessary to break down the activity or process into a series of parts and assess each part separately. This step should provide information where and which employees are likely to be at risk of incurring injury or disease, how often this is likely to occur, and the potential severity of that injury or disease risk. Identifying control measures The final step in risk assessment is to determine the control measures that need to be taken and the ongoing review of those measures.