Risk management and safety processes are closely aligned. Risk
management deals with the identification and treatment of risk. Safety programs
are a way to treat the exposure of risk of injury to workers. While intertwined
they are separate disciplines that require expertise for programs to perform at
a high level.
For this discussion risk management is defined as the “insurance
risk management” as discussed by International Risk Management Institute “IRMI”
definition page that follows.
“Risk Management: The practice of identifying and
analyzing loss exposures and taking steps to minimize the financial impact of
the risks they impose. Traditional risk management, sometimes called
"insurance risk management," has focused on "pure risks"
(i.e., possible loss by fortuitous or accidental means) but not business risks
(i.e., those that may present the possibility of loss or gain). Financial
institutions also employ a different type of risk management, which focuses on
the effects of financial risks on the organization. For example, interest rate
risk is a bank's most important financial risk, and various hedging tools and
techniques such as derivatives are used to manage banks' exposure to interest
rate volatility”
The risk management
process is also important to understand as safety also follows a similar path.
"The risk management process is the process of making and implementing
decisions that will minimize the adverse effects of accidental business losses on
an organization. Making these decisions involves a sequence of five steps:
identifying and analyzing exposures to loss, examining feasible alternative
risk management techniques to handle exposures, selecting the most appropriate
risk management techniques to handle exposures, implementing the chosen
techniques, and monitoring the results. Implementing these decisions requires
performing the four functions of the management process: planning, organizing,
leading, and controlling resources.”
(Note: IRMI.com is a fabulous web-site as a reference tool and I
highly recommend it and their product offerings for the risk management and insurance professional.)
It is important to emphasis the steps of Identifying,
Examining, Selecting, Implementing and Monitoring form a continuous process loop. Risk management and safety cycles, like other businesses cycles such as accounting, never end. It needs to be though of as a circular process, as demonstrated by the visual below. If the process stops, the process will falter and eventually fail.
Source: http://strikingprojectmanagement.com/qualitative-risk-analysis/
The steps involved in addressing safety are the same as risk management, but
may use different core methods under each step to achieve a optimal outcome. The safety steps include:
- Identify Hazards, a review of job analysis and hazard assessments need to be completed.
- Examine the hazard and the risk the employee is exposed to.
- Select a treatment to address the hazard. Can the process be re-engineered or can protection such as guards be put in place? Is training and personal protective equipment feasible?
- Implementation of the agreed upon treatment of the risk needs to be made, with the communication to all of the stakeholders.
- Monitor the results of the treatment. Are injury rates down? Is production efficiency maintained? Is the treatment such that employees are following established protocols? Is data collected to make monitoring credible to management?
