the late 1980s and early 1900s, organizations in the United States and throughout the world began to shift toward more risk‐based decision‐making to improve overall safety performance and reduce incidents of serious injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.
This was coupled with the fact that regulators in certain regions began adopting more risk‐based approaches. The concept began to really pick up steam and move forward after 2010 as ASSP volunteers put their collective resources and expertise into high‐caliber technical reports and standards.
For many decades in occupational safety and health, businesses and industries around the world were arguably more focused on regulatory compliance and task management centered instead of managing risks. As time went on and illnesses, injuries, and fatalities metrics plateaued, it was clear that something needed to change in order to achieve real progress.
As an example, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that, from 2003 to 2016, the level of fatal occupational injuries maintained relatively steady. This indicates that there is still more work to do to educate safety professionals and business executives on the importance of identifying hazards and focusing on risk assessment, avoidance, and control.
A risk‐based strategy serves many purposes, the foremost of which is identifying potential hazards and risks associated with an operation so that proper controls can be put in place. Once the risk is understood, organizations can develop a number of options for mitigating or eliminating hazards and risks. Safety professionals can play a key role in the process if they are able to facilitate the analysis and identify practical solutions.
A properly designed risk assessment will also effectively communicate to decision‐makers the impact these risks could have on the organization, both from a safety standpoint and on the bottom line. Although progress has been made among safety professionals and business leaders in utilizing risk‐based decision‐making, many are still along the continuum of maturity from compliance to improved performance through risk assessment. To this day, the level of expertise about risk assessment and how risk is viewed varies from region to region.
1.2.1 Approach Taken at the ASSP
Several Occupational Safety and Health Professionals who were active in the ASSP recognized that requirements for risk assessment were more frequently included in safety‐related standards and guidelines and that the ASSP should provide its members with educational opportunities through which the necessary skills could be acquired. A presentation on the subject was made at the ASSP/ASSP February 2013 Board of Directors meeting, the outcome of which was the creation of a Risk Assessment Institute and an ASSP Risk Assessment Committee.
One of the key issues leading to the formation of the committee was for its members to work on literature, videos, webinars, and other materials that could be presented at chapter meetings and at conferences. The significance of these activities is that increased awareness had developed among the leaders of ASSP, a professional and technical organization with an international scope that its members would be well served if they were provided means to acquire risk assessment skills. This is an important step forward for the practice of safety.
Risk assessment is a formal process for identifying hazards, evaluating and analyzing risks associated with those hazards, then either eliminating the hazards or controlling those risks that cannot be eliminated to minimize injury and illness potential. It is critical to proactively prioritize and mitigate risk in advance of injuries or catastrophes.
1.2.2 ASSP Risk Assessment Committee
Throughout, our Risk Assessment Committee (ASSP) has aimed to include risk assessment into an organizational risk process, allowing businesses to be proactive in prioritizing and mitigating risk in advance of injuries or catastrophes. By understanding and implementing risk‐based approaches to safety management, injury/illness prevention, and employee well‐being, occupational safety professionals help their organizations improve overall performance and position themselves as high‐profile contributors who help organizations achieve their goals.
1.2.3 The Goals
Through its work and initiatives, the Risk Assessment Committee pursues four distinct goals:
1 Educate executives, the business community, and occupational safety and health professionals on the value of the risk assessment approach and ways to successfully implement risk assessment.
2 Improve risk‐related training and education for occupational safety and health professionals so they can better understand the risk‐based decision‐making process and improve core risk assessment competencies.
3 Provide a platform for the occupational safety community to contribute to the development of new evidence‐based risk‐related policies, processes, and solutions. We seek ways to leverage the expertise of the occupational safety and health community in identifying and quantifying risk, advance risk‐related regulatory and legislative initiatives related to the management of risks, and identify relevant research related to understanding risks.
4 Provide a center of excellence for risk‐related information and tools relevant to occupational safety and health professionals This involves collecting and disseminating relevant risk‐related research, collaborating with the insurance, accounting, and financial risk management industries to promote an exchange of ideas, accessing real‐world practical experiences and applications, and facilitating outreach and collaboration with global nongovernmental organizations and academia.
1.2.4 Core Risk‐Related Competencies
There is a section on core competencies for risk management within ASSP’s original paper on the Risk Management Institute and the most significant points are paraphrased here. Reference is made in that paper to several standards that contain relative definitions and descriptions. They are mentioned in this chapter – Z10, 45001, the 690 series, and Z590.3.
It is suggested that safety and health professionals know how to effectively implement and maintain a risk management system, for which guidance is given in this chapter. However, we know from member and stakeholder feedback that there is an ongoing need for training and development to effectively implement risk assessment systems.
Obviously, safety practitioners would have knowledge of relative principles, basic guidelines, and common risk assessment techniques. Be cautious here. Elsewhere in this chapter it is suggested that having knowledge of five risk assessment techniques would be sufficient for most, but not all, situations that safety professionals will need to consider. As this chapter is being written, a study is in progress that mentions, in detail, 49 risk assessment techniques. Some are exceptionally complex. Whatever risk assessment techniques a safety and health professional chooses to apply should meet the needs of the organization and not be overly complex if that can be avoided.
Hopefully, safety and health professionals will become involved with engineers in design reviews where the most effective and economical risk avoidance or control can be implemented.
Overall, safety and health professionals need to become more skilled so that they can provide counsel on analyzing risk assessments, establishing acceptable risk levels, utilizing a hierarchy of control system, identifying serious injury, illness and fatality potentials, monitoring the effectiveness of risk control measures, and prioritizing risks.
Throughout, communication would be critical for all affected in all four stages of the operational setting: (i) preoperational, (ii) operational, (iii) post incident, and (iv) post operation.
