The Most Effective Approaches to WHS Risk Management

Hazards are often hidden in plain sight—embedded in how work is structured, resourced, and performed. Effective hazard identification methods include:

• Observations and walkthroughs, including peer-based and specialist inspections.

• Review of safety-critical processes (e.g., confined space, plant movement, chemical handling).

• Insights from incident data, near misses, and learning reviews.

• Worker-raised concerns and frontline experience, which often highlight what systems overlook.

All identified hazards should be recorded, and where applicable, trigger a Corrective Action or Learning Review process—not just to fix, but to understand.

Risk assessments should focus on how work is done, not just how it was imagined or documented. The purpose is to evaluate:

• Likelihood of the hazard leading to harm.

• Consequences of that harm.

• Exposure to the hazard.

When deciding what is "reasonably practicable", consider:

• Known and foreseeable factors.

• Control availability and suitability.

• The cost, effort, and potential trade-offs of additional controls.

Risk assessments should be refreshed when:

• New equipment or processes are introduced.

• There are changes to tasks, people, or conditions.

• Evidence suggests current controls are no longer effective.

For high-risk scenarios, or where trade-offs between risks must be made (e.g., low-frequency high-consequence vs high-frequency low-consequence), a Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) and specialist input may be warranted.

Controls can degrade, drift, or be bypassed. Ensure you:

• Verify that controls are present, used, and functioning.

• Identify defeating factors—things that can make a control ineffective.

• Maintain, test, and inspect safety-critical systems.

• Track the completion of critical activities as leading indicators of safety performance.

Remember, controls should be designed with the realities of work in mind—not just idealised versions of tasks.

Regular reviews are vital. Reassess when:

• An incident or near miss indicates a gap in your controls.

• Work conditions or structures change significantly.

• Stakeholder feedback or data suggest assumptions no longer hold.

Reviews should not only consider technical performance but also how people experience and adapt to risk controls in practice.

Effective hazard and risk management is not about eliminating every possible hazard—it’s about making wise, informed decisions about which risks matter most and how to reduce them so far as is reasonably practicable (SFAIRP). It’s about supporting people to do work well, even when things don’t go to plan.

As a safety leader, your role is to:

• Foster curiosity about how work is really done.

• Engage in humble inquiry, not assumptions.

• Coach and support others to build capacity, not just compliance.

By shifting from enforcing rules to understanding and improving how work happens, we build organisations that are not only safer—but more resilient, adaptive, and human-centred.