Identifying Workplace Hazards

workplace hazards

Identifying workplace hazards is a part of risk assessment and the legal responsibility of an employer to make sure that employees are safe at the workplace from potential hazards.

There are two types of hazards in the workplace:

Safety Hazards: - work at height, Manual handling operation, etc.

Health Hazards: - radiation, vibration, noise, etc.

What are the workplace Hazards actually? 

Something or situation that is the potential to cause harm in terms of injury, sickness or property damage is called Hazard.

If someone receives an electric shock from a damaged electrical cord, then electricity is the hazard, not the damaged cord. It is electricity that causes harm.

Fall is not a hazard of the work at height, for example, someone falls from the scaffolding platform and got a head injury. Fall is the consequence and the degree of injury is the severity, then WHAT IS HAZARD?

Hazards can be:

• Missing guard rail system,

• Absent of lifeline or substantial anchorage point,

• Not wearing the full-body harness,

• Not compliance of 100% tie-off

• Scaffolding is not inspected or holding a red tag,

different types of hazards

Again think the definition of hazard................potential to cause harm

 If someone did not fall. the hazards would still be present, fall is the failure in the control or prevention measures.

6 basic workplace hazards can be classified as:

• Physical - the most common workplace hazards, because of their physical characteristics such as electricity, work at height, vibration, noise, heat, vehicle, moving machine parts, etc.

• Chemical - hazardous substances because of their chemical characteristics such as lead, mercury, sulfuric acid, silica dust, cement dust, etc. can cause skin irritation, respiratory protection irritation, cancer, etc.

• Biological - living microorganism such as bacteria, moulds, fungi and virus that cause disease and ill health e.g. hepatitis B, legionella disease, corona, etc.

• The ergonomic- physical factor that harms the musculoskeletal system such as frequent repetitive activities, wrong posture, poor manual handling technique, etc.

• Phycological - the things that potential to cause harm to the mind (mental health), wellbeing rather than body such as exposure to highly traumatic events, sexual harassments, workplace violence.

• Safety - these hazards are the result of unsafe working conditions such as slipping /tripping hazards, inappropriate machine guarding, equipment malfunction or breakdown. These are sometimes included under the physical hazard.

How to identify workplace hazards:

There is various method can be used in hazards identification, such as:

• Task Analysis: 

This is a useful method for identifying workplace hazards before the work started. The task analysis or job safety analysis (JSA) involves 5 steps,

1. Select the task,

1. Break the job into small activities,

1. Identify the hazards step by step,

1. Decide the control measures,

1. Close monitoring to check the effectiveness of control measures,

• Legislation

Knowledge of the legal standards that apply to a workplace will help the identifying workplace hazards, such as working on a temporary platform, 1.8-meter height from the ground is considered work at height. Excavation more than 1.2 meters deep consider as a confined space, etc.

• Manufacturer's information

Manufacturer's information helps the identifying workplace hazards such as SDS describes the hazards of the chemical, instruction book contains information about all the related hazards and instruction for safe use.

• Incident data

Internal accident data, near-miss data, accident investigation report determine the identifying workplace hazards.

My field experience about the most powerful method of identifying workplace hazards is to

• Encouraging workers to identify workplace hazards,
• Monitoring the workplace and working method,
• 'Hazards identification section' of  permit to work,
• 'Identify the hazards section of  the risk assessment and JSA

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