A Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) assists emergency managers with these questions. It is a risk assessment tool that may be used to grade the risks of any hazard. HIRA is most critical in identifying potential hazards and evaluating the associated risks to prevent accidents, injury, and damage to property. In this blog, we will observe the role of HIRA in safety management and how it can be implemented properly.
HOW TO PERFORM HIRA IN YOUR ORGANIZATION?
It becomes imperative to get cross-functional teams, reliable evaluation methods, and enable improvement of safety controls in order to successfully execute Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) within your company. This end-to-end step-by-step process aims to assist in implementing HIRA methodolody-
- Form the Team- Start to set up a cross-functional team of personnel who possess the required technical knowledge and possess operating decision-making authority. Such a team may consist of representatives from employees, safety officers, engineers, department heads, and line supervisors. All those participating in group briefing should be exposed to the timelines and goals of the HIRA process. The roles should be aligned to the briefing, and expected outcomes and actions should be clarified through the HIRA process. Where appropriate, external auditors or safety experts can be included to confirm the process and include best practices from other industries. A combined team ensures adequate representation from all parts of the organization and avoids the likelihood of overlooking several likely hazards.
- Hazard Identification- The first step in HIRA is identifying each possible hazard that could occur in the workplace, such as processes, equipment, task, and the environment in which they work. This involves a coordinated effort that involves methods such as Job Safety Analysis (JSA), walkthroughs, evaluation report, employee interviews, and examination of previous incident history. The purpose is to document normal and abnormal tasks such as clean-up, maintenance, or emergency response. All forms of hazards should be identified in order to be able to evaluate and map risk, such as physical and psychosocial.
- Risk Assessment- In the landscape of workplace drivers in decision science and psychology, businesses or to disorder, occurrence in the environment, illness, and others by and large electron misbehaves, the second is assessment concerning factors of individual identity crisis in the neighborhood and all-inclusive work experience. It is essential to prioritize high-risk events that are likely to cause severe injuries, legal complications, or impact business operations and institute proper identification of such risks and immediate actions to mitigate them.
- Risk Mitigation Strategies- After identifying risks, organizations need to develop and implement proper steps to eliminate or deal with such risks. These measures will be founded on the risk control hierarchy, which sets elimination and replacement of the hazard as first priority, followed by engineering controls, administration, and finally PPE. Rather than just providing PPE for chemical exposure, remove the toxic substance or automate the operation to reduce manual exposure. Those control steps that are taken should be achievable, delegable, and be able to be assessed periodically for efficiency. In addition, all of the controls should be tracked with the account of the implementer, action implementation status, and control action progress, to make tracking and review simpler.
- Training and Education- Training for effectiveness is a key part in making HIRA functional and actionable. All employees need to be adequately trained on hazard identification, risk estimation, safe work practice, and on control measures including the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Training can be implemented in the form of formal sessions, toolbox talks, drills, and workplace posters. Special care must be taken for new hires, casual laborers, and contractors so that they are adequately knowledgeable about safety practices. An educated workforce not only implements safety but also becomes proactive in hazard detection and improvement strategies that promote an organization’s culture of collective responsibility.
- Monitoring and Review Procedures- Supervision of hazard control procedures is very important in a manner that they must remain effective and current with the elapse of time. Organizations need to develop regular time slots for health and safety inspections, ISO 45001 internal audits, behavioral audits, incident trend analysis, and other similar processes. Appropriate measurement standards may include near-miss incidents, rate of reporting incidents, and filling out compliance checklists that may be useful in measuring safety performance. Through these measures, worker and supervisor involvement may be able to pinpoint practical-deficient issues not captured on documents. What emerges from the results of review and audit on safety should be what drives changes or developments to the existing HIRA procedure.
- Documentation- Documentation is a critical aspect of simplifying the HIRA process and facilitating occupational safety norms compliance. All records of hazard identification, risk assessment, control measures, training, and other activities related to them should be kept centrally, preferably within a computerized system with easy access and version control. Systematic reporting becomes feasible with HIRA registers, inspection checklists, and corrective action trackers. This reporting is necessary for internal audits, external certifications such as ISO 45001, and regulatory audits. It also assists in identifying trends and opportunities for continuous improvement over the long term for safety performance.
- Update and Enhance Systems Performance- The organization needs to update and modify the HIRA process from time to time based on changing operations to make sure the effectiveness of the process. Reviews must be at least annually or with occurrence of changes in equipment, material, or work processes. Qualitative approach is a documented and systematic strategy where observations to various strategic indicative activities are referenced and the possibility and influence determined based on technical know-how, professional judgment and expertness. Formal review committees ensure objective evaluation of the extent to which existing risk controls are functioning. History of the events, new policy requirements from regulations, and organizational rules and recommendations by employees need to be considered during review. This concludes the process while enhancing the cycle of continuous improvement in occupational health and safety systems.
Why Do Hazards Need to be Acknowledged?
Risk is the hidden consequence of an incident or chain of incidents. Risk is introduced whenever a cluster of risk factors occur simultaneously to bring about an accident manifesting itself in an event like a fire or an explosion. Risk Assessment (RA) is an activity that has proved its value as a whole and complete system for improving the quality of safety that is in every dangerous industry. With the advancement of in-built and inherent safety systems, accidents rates have fallen but still stand at unacceptable levels for new
technology, new plants and chemical handling facilities. RA is a systemized safety
assessments tool designed for high hazard industries such as chemical, petrochemical, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, sea ports, etc., supplementing other safety systems tools such as HIRA, safety audit, and regular incident analysis to identify the possibility of incidents (near-misses, unsafe conditions) and control measures needed to be assessed.
Conclusion
Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) is a valuable process of safety management. By the process of systematic identification of hazards and estimation of the associated risks, organizations can install control measures to prevent accidents, injuries, and damage to property. Not only does HIRA help in ensuring compliance with the law but also in having a safe and productive work environment. By prioritizing safety and using HIRA in the correct manner, organizations are able to safeguard their most precious asset – their workers.
