Managing risks and risk assessment at work

1. Overview

As an employer, you're required by law to protect your employees, and others, from harm.

Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, the minimum you must do is:

identify what could cause injury or illness in your business (hazards)
decide how likely it is that someone could be harmed and how seriously (the risk)
take action to eliminate the hazard, or if this isn't possible, control the risk

Assessing risk is just one part of the overall process used to control risks in your workplace.

For most small, low-risk businesses the steps you need to take are straightforward and are explained in these pages.

If your business is larger or higher-risk, you can find detailed guidance here^[5].

Steps needed to manage riskhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/steps-needed-to-manage-risk.htm
Risk assessment template and exampleshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/risk-assessment-template-and-examples.htm
Common workplace riskshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/common-workplace-risks.htm
More detail on managing riskhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/more-detail-on-managing-risk.htm
find detailed guidance herehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/more-detail-on-managing-risk.htm
check if health and safety law applies to youhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/self-employed/does-law-apply-to-me.htm
Next page Steps needed to manage risk https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/steps-needed-to-manage-risk.htm
View a printable version of the whole guidehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/print.htm
Introduction to managing health and safetyhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/managing/introduction/index.htm
Health and safety basics for your businesshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/index.htm
Prepare a health and safety policyhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/policy/index.htm