How do i do a risk assessment: A Practical Guide for Your Worksite

So, what does it actually mean to do a risk assessment?

At its core, it's a systematic way of looking at your worksite, figuring out what could seriously hurt someone, and then putting practical steps in place to stop that from happening. You're essentially creating a game plan to prevent incidents before they even get a chance to occur.

It’s not about ticking boxes. It’s a hands-on process that you record, act on, and keep coming back to.

Why a Risk Assessment is Your Most Practical Tool

A solid risk assessment is far more than just a compliance document you file away. For anyone in construction, manufacturing, or any industrial setting, it's your most practical tool for keeping people safe and projects running smoothly.

The whole idea is simple: you can't manage a risk you haven't identified. This process turns pure guesswork and hoping for the best into a structured, practical approach to safety. It’s not about creating mountains of paperwork; it’s about making smart, informed decisions that protect your crew.

The Real-World Impact

Let's be blunt: operating without a proper risk assessment process is like working blindfolded. The consequences are real and devastating.

Across Australia, there were 188 work-related fatalities from traumatic injuries in one recent year. That's a national rate of 1.3 deaths per 100,000 workers. In Western Australia, it was even higher at 1.9 per 100,000. Vehicle incidents alone accounted for 42% of these deaths, proving just how quickly common site activities can turn deadly without the right controls in place.

A good risk assessment isn’t just about following rules. It’s a tool that forces you to understand your specific worksite, identify the genuine threats, and focus your energy and resources where they’ll actually make a difference. It’s what helps make your safety efforts practical.

What Does a Good Risk Assessment Achieve?

When done right, a risk assessment gives you a clear path forward. It helps you:

• Prioritise Actions: You can't fix everything at once. The assessment process helps you pinpoint the most severe risks, so you can tackle the biggest problems first with your available time and budget.
• Meet Your Legal Duties: Fulfilling your obligations under Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws is non-negotiable. A documented risk assessment is your primary evidence that you are actively and responsibly managing safety on site.
• Involve Your Team: The best insights come from the people actually doing the work. They know the shortcuts, the hidden dangers, and the practical realities of a task better than anyone. A good process brings them into the conversation.

These same principles extend beyond just physical hazards. For instance, the same structured thinking is vital for a proactive risk assessment in HR to manage human-factor risks.

To break it down, every effective risk assessment follows the same fundamental logic.

The 5 Core Steps of a Risk Assessment

These five steps form the backbone of everything we'll cover in this guide. We'll get into each one, using practical examples from real construction and manufacturing sites to give you the confidence to get it done right.

Spotting Hazards Before They Cause Harm

This is where it all begins. A hazard is anything with the potential to cause harm, and on a busy construction site or factory floor, they are everywhere. The goal here isn't just to 'look around'; it's to systematically find and list everything that could realistically injure someone.

A good hazard identification process is active, not passive. You can't just assume you know all the dangers because you've worked on similar sites before. Every location, every team, and every single day brings its own unique conditions. If you miss a hazard at this stage, it’s completely ignored for the rest of the process.

Go Beyond a Simple Walk-Around

Let’s be honest, a quick stroll around the site just doesn't cut it. To do this properly, you need to use a few different methods together to build a complete picture of what you’re dealing with. Think of it like using different camera angles to see a full scene.

The most common starting point is a physical inspection or walk-through, but to make it effective, you have to be methodical. Don't just look for the obvious stuff like spills or loose cables. You need to break the site or task down into smaller parts and examine each one closely.

A great way to approach this is to think in categories. This helps organise your thoughts and makes sure you don't overlook entire classes of danger.

• Physical Hazards: These are often the easiest to spot. We're talking about unguarded machinery, working at heights, noisy equipment, trailing leads, or unstable ground conditions.
• Chemical Hazards: Look for any liquids, dusts, or fumes that could be harmful. This includes everything from cleaning agents and welding fumes to silica dust and unlabelled containers.
• Biological Hazards: Depending on the site, this could involve mould, contaminated water, or pests.
• Ergonomic Hazards: These relate to how people interact with their work environment. Think repetitive tasks, awkward postures from a poor workstation setup, or heavy manual handling.

Your Most Valuable Source of Information

Your single greatest resource for finding hazards is the crew on the ground. The people operating the machinery, assembling the components, or working in the trenches have a level of practical knowledge that no manager can ever match.

They know which machine guard is a pain to use, which corner is a blind spot for forklifts, and what shortcuts are being taken when time gets tight.

Don’t just ask your team, "Is there anything unsafe?" That question is too broad and often gets you nowhere. Instead, ask specific, open-ended questions like: "What's the most frustrating part of this task?" or "If you could change one thing to make this job easier, what would it be?" The answers often reveal the real, hidden hazards.

Engaging your team properly builds a much more accurate list of potential problems. Schedule brief, informal chats with operators and tradespeople. Make it clear you're there to listen and learn, not to point fingers. This isn't about finding fault; it's about finding facts. For a deeper understanding, you can explore common categories of hazards in the workplace to guide your conversations.

Dig Into the Data You Already Have

Past incidents are powerful indicators of future risks. Don't let that old paperwork just gather dust in a filing cabinet.

• Review Incident Reports: Look at past injury reports, near-miss logs, and first aid records. Are there patterns? A recurring issue with hand injuries might point straight to a problem with a specific tool or process.
• Check Maintenance Logs: Frequent repairs on a specific piece of equipment could signal that it's becoming unreliable and potentially dangerous. A failing hydraulic line that's been patched multiple times is a serious hazard just waiting to happen.
• Read Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS): Are the documented procedures actually being followed out in the field? If not, why? The gap between the documented procedure and what really happens on the ground is often where new hazards appear.

By combining a structured physical inspection, direct conversations with your team, and a review of existing records, you build a comprehensive list of hazards. This list becomes the solid foundation for the next step of your risk assessment: figuring out which of these hazards poses the greatest threat.

Assessing What Could Realistically Go Wrong

Right, you've got your list of hazards. Now comes the real work: sorting the genuine threats from the minor nuisances. Some things on your list are accidents waiting to happen, while others are just part of the daily grind. This step is all about telling the difference so you can focus your energy where it matters most.

It really boils down to looking at two things for every hazard you’ve identified:

1. Likelihood: How likely is it that someone could actually get hurt by this?
2. Consequence: And if they do get hurt, how bad would it realistically be?

By weighing up these two factors, you get a clear picture of the overall risk level. This simple process stops you from treating a paper cut with the same urgency as a potential fall from height, making sure your time and money go towards fixing the biggest problems first.

Determining Likelihood and Consequence

Forget complex formulas. This is about making a sensible judgement call based on your experience on the tools, feedback from your crew, and what’s happening on your site right now.

To figure out likelihood, ask yourself some practical questions:

• How often are people near this hazard? Daily? Once a month?
• How many people are exposed? Just one person, or the whole team?
• Have there been any near misses or actual incidents with this hazard before? On your site or others you know of?
• What controls are already in place, and are they actually working?

For consequence, think about the most probable outcome, not the absolute worst-case movie scene.

• Could it cause a minor injury that just needs a plaster from the first aid kit? (like a nick from a sharp edge)
• Could it lead to a serious injury? Something needing a trip to the doctor and time off work? (like a fall from a step ladder or a deep cut)
• Is there a real chance of a fatality or a life-changing injury? (like contact with live power lines or a fall from a roof)

The reality is that unmanaged risks have serious consequences. Across Australia, workers recently lodged 146,700 serious compensation claims – each one representing at least a week off work. Construction sites were responsible for 12% of these, with manufacturing not far behind at 10.1%. These aren’t just numbers; they represent real people and families impacted, and highlight the financial and human cost of getting this wrong. You can read more on the impact of workplace incidents from this SBS News report.

Using a Risk Matrix to Prioritise

A risk matrix is just a simple grid that helps you visually plot likelihood against consequence to get a risk rating. It’s not a perfect scientific tool, but it's brilliant for making consistent, defensible decisions.

You plot likelihood on one side, consequence on the other, and the grid gives you a rating – usually something like low, medium, high, or extreme.

Let's walk through a couple of common site examples to see how it works.

Example 1: Trailing Electrical Lead

• Hazard: An extension cord is stretched across a main walkway in the workshop.
• Likelihood: Likely. The walkway is busy all day, with heaps of people walking back and forth.
• Consequence: Minor. The most likely thing to happen is a trip, maybe leading to a few bruises or a sprain. A serious injury is possible but not the most probable outcome.
• Risk Rating: On most matrices, this would land in the Medium risk zone. It needs attention, for sure, but it’s not a drop-everything-and-fix-it-now situation.

Example 2: Unsecured Ladder for High-Level Work

• Hazard: An electrician is up a 6-metre extension ladder, and it isn't tied off or footed by a spotter.
• Likelihood: Possible. It might not slip this time, but an uneven patch of ground, a gust of wind, or the worker over-reaching makes an incident entirely possible.
• Consequence: Major/Severe. A fall from that height is almost guaranteed to cause broken bones, serious internal damage, or worse.
• Risk Rating: This one is a no-brainer. It lands squarely in the High or Extreme risk category and demands you stop the job immediately.

The point here isn’t to get bogged down arguing over perfect scores. It’s about creating a clear, logical priority list. The goal is to jump on the 'High' and 'Extreme' risks straight away, making sure your biggest threats are dealt with first.

Applying this thinking to every hazard turns that overwhelming list into an organised action plan. You’ll know exactly what needs your immediate attention and what can be scheduled for later. For a more detailed guide, have a look at our article on using a risk management matrix to structure your assessments.

Putting Controls in Place That Actually Work

You've done the hard yards identifying hazards and working out the risks. Now for the most important part: doing something about them. A risk assessment that just gathers dust in a folder is completely pointless. This is where you take action and implement practical controls to make your site safer.

The real key here is to avoid jumping straight to the easiest fix, which is almost always just telling people to wear more PPE. To get this right, you need a structured approach called the Hierarchy of Controls.

Understanding the Hierarchy of Controls

Picture the hierarchy as a pyramid. The most effective, reliable controls are at the very top, and the least effective are at the bottom. Your job is to always start at the top and work your way down. You should only move to a lower-level control if the ones above it aren't reasonably practicable to implement.

This framework is so important because it forces you to look for solutions that get rid of the problem at its source, rather than just putting a band-aid on it.

This diagram shows how a risk is broken down, looking at both the likelihood of something going wrong and the potential consequences.

As you can see, a solid assessment weighs up both probability and impact. This process guides you to choose the right level of control for the level of risk you're dealing with.

The Best Controls: Elimination and Substitution

This is where you can make the biggest difference, right at the top of the pyramid.

• Elimination: This is the gold standard. It means you get rid of the hazard completely. If it’s not there, it can’t hurt anyone. For instance, instead of having workers up on ladders to install light fixtures, you could design the process so the fixtures are assembled on the ground and then lifted into place by a crane. Hazard gone.
• Substitution: If you can't eliminate it, can you swap it for something safer? Think about replacing a harsh, solvent-based paint with a water-based alternative to cut down on exposure to harmful fumes.

These two are by far the most effective controls because they don’t rely on people remembering to do the right thing every single time. They fundamentally change the work itself to make it safer.

Engineering and Administrative Controls: Your Next Best Options

When elimination or substitution isn't on the cards, you move down to the next rungs of the ladder. These are still very strong options for cutting down risk.

Engineering Controls are about making physical changes to the workplace, equipment, or process.

• Installing guard rails around an open edge on a mezzanine.
• Putting fixed guards on the moving parts of a conveyor belt.
• Using local exhaust ventilation systems to suck welding fumes or dust out of the air right at the source.

Administrative Controls focus on changing the way people work.

• Developing a Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) for a high-risk task and training everyone on it.
• Painting clear walkways and using signs to separate people from forklifts.
• Bringing in job rotation to limit how long a worker spends on a repetitive or physically demanding task.

These are good controls, but you’ll notice they start to rely more on people following the rules and procedures correctly. For a deeper dive, check out our guide on the hierarchy of control measures.

To see how this works in the real world, here’s a table showing how you might apply these controls on a typical construction or manufacturing site.

Hierarchy of Controls Practical Examples

As you can see, the higher up the list you go, the more robust and reliable the solution becomes. It’s all about creating layers of protection, not just relying on one thing.

PPE: The Last Line of Defence

Right down at the bottom of the pyramid, you'll find Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This is your hard hats, safety glasses, gloves, and high-vis gear.

PPE is absolutely essential for many jobs, but it should never be your first or only solution. It does nothing to change the hazard itself; it just puts a thin barrier between the hazard and the person. If that PPE fails, isn't worn correctly, or is the wrong type for the job, the worker is completely exposed.

Think of it like this: a guard rail (an engineering control) protects everyone near it, 24/7, whether they’re paying attention or not. A safety harness (PPE) only protects the person wearing it, and only if they inspect it, put it on, and attach it correctly every single time. The effectiveness of PPE is totally dependent on human factors, which makes it the least reliable control measure.

By methodically working through the hierarchy for each significant risk, you build a robust, multi-layered defence system that actually works on a busy, real-world site.

Making it Stick: Documentation, Reviews, and Staying Ahead of the Game

Let's be blunt: a risk assessment is completely useless if it only lives in your head or on a forgotten piece of paper.

The job isn't done once you've picked your controls. The final, critical steps are documenting everything and setting up a solid review process. This is what transforms a one-time effort into a living, breathing safety system that actually protects people.

Think of it this way: proper documentation is your official record. It's the proof you've done your due diligence. More importantly, it’s the blueprint for how the crew should do the job safely, day in and day out.

What Good Documentation Actually Looks Like

Forget those ridiculously complicated, 20-page forms no one ever reads. Good documentation is clear, concise, and written for the people who are actually doing the work. It doesn't need to be a literary masterpiece.

At the very least, your risk assessment needs to clearly state:

• What the job is: Just a simple description, like "Erecting scaffold on the south elevation" or "Operating the hydraulic press."
• The hazards you spotted: Be specific. List the actual dangers, like crushing points, working at height, or silica dust exposure.
• Who's at risk and how: For example, "Operators' hands could be caught in the press," or "Workers on the ground could be struck by falling objects from the scaffold."
• The controls you're using: Detail the exact actions you've taken. "Fit a two-hand control system to the press" or "Establish a 5-metre exclusion zone below the scaffold build."
• Who’s doing what: Note who is responsible for implementing the controls and by when.

This isn’t just about ticking a compliance box. This is about communication. A well-documented assessment is the perfect script for a pre-start meeting or a toolbox talk.

Getting Beyond Paper and Spreadsheets

Sure, a paper form or a spreadsheet can work. But let’s be honest, they usually cause more headaches than they solve. Documents get lost, someone uses the wrong version, and trying to share info across a busy site is a nightmare.

This is where simple digital tools change everything. Using a platform like Safety Space puts all your risk assessments in one central spot, accessible on a tablet or phone right where the work is happening. This makes it ridiculously easy to share with the crew, update on the fly, and prove you have a working system in place.

A risk assessment sitting in a folder in the site office is a waste of time. One that's accessible on a supervisor's tablet and discussed with the crew before they pick up the tools is what actually prevents injuries. It makes safety part of the job, not a separate task.

Knowing When to Hit Refresh on Your Assessment

A risk assessment is a live document, not a museum piece. The risks on your site can change in a heartbeat, and if your assessment doesn’t keep up, you’re flying blind.

You absolutely must review and, if needed, tear up and rewrite your risk assessment in a few key situations.

Key Triggers for a Review:

1. After an Incident or Near Miss: This is non-negotiable. If something goes wrong, it's a massive red flag that your controls failed or you missed a hazard completely. The review needs to dig into why and fix it, fast.
2. When New Gear or Substances Arrive: A new bit of kit, like a different model of excavator or a new chemical, brings its own set of dangers. You have to assess these before anyone starts using it.
3. When the Job Changes: Even a small tweak to a work procedure can create brand new risks. If you alter how a task is done, you need to go back and check if your assessment is still fit for purpose.
4. After a Chat with Your Team: If workers raise a new concern or suggest a better, safer way of doing things, that’s gold. It’s the perfect reason to pull out the assessment and review it with them.
5. On a Regular Schedule: Even if nothing big changes, it’s just good practice to review your key risk assessments on a set schedule—say, annually—to make sure they haven’t gone stale.

Common Questions About Risk Assessments

Even with the best plan in the world, things change on site. Knowing how to do a risk assessment is one thing, but knowing how to handle these curveballs is what really counts.

Let's run through some straight answers to the questions we hear all the time. Think of this as the practical, on-the-ground advice that bridges the gap between the paperwork and the reality of a busy worksite.

What if a New Hazard Appears Mid-Job?

This happens constantly. Your crew starts digging and uncovers some old, unstable pipework. Or maybe a sudden downpour turns the whole accessway into a mud pit. You can't just stop the job, but you definitely can't ignore the new risk.

The answer is what we call a dynamic risk assessment. It’s less formal and much faster.

• Stop the work in that specific area. No need to shut down the entire site, just the affected zone.
• Quickly size up the new hazard. Use the same logic: what’s the likelihood and consequence? Is this a high-risk situation needing a serious fix right now?
• Put in a temporary control. This could be as simple as throwing up some barrier tape and a sign around the dodgy ground.
• Jot it down. Make a quick note of the new hazard and what you did about it on your risk assessment form or in your digital system.

The key is to act fast, be practical, and document what you did.

You don't need to write a whole new multi-page risk assessment from scratch every time something pops up. The goal is to manage the immediate danger, then circle back to update your main assessment to reflect the new reality of the site.

How Detailed Does My Assessment Need to Be?

The detail should always match the risk. Simple as that.

Your assessment for routine office work will look completely different to one for operating a tower crane or entering a confined space. A good rule of thumb is to focus on what actually matters. Don't waste your time documenting every tiny possibility—no one needs a two-page report on the risk of a paper cut.

Pour your energy into the hazards that could cause serious, irreversible harm. These are the ones that demand a detailed breakdown of the task, the specific risks, and the layers of controls you’re putting in place. For low-risk stuff, a simple checklist or a brief documented procedure is almost always enough.

Can We Use a Generic Risk Assessment?

Generic templates can be a decent starting point, but they're never the finished product. Ever. Every single worksite is different, with its own unique layout, gear, and crew.

Think of a template as a prompt sheet—it's there to jog your memory about common hazards for a task like welding or grinding.

But you must walk the job and adapt it to your specific situation. Ask yourself:

• What's different about our site? (e.g., poor lighting, other trades working right next to us).
• What exact piece of equipment are we using? Is it old? New?
• Who on my team is doing the work? Are they a seasoned pro or a new apprentice?

Using a generic template without customising it is just a box-ticking exercise. It won't keep anyone safe and it won't stand up to scrutiny if something goes wrong.

What if I Disagree With a Subcontractor’s Risk Assessment?

This is a big one, and it happens all the time. If a subbie shows up with a risk assessment (or a SWMS) that you know is inadequate for your site, you have a responsibility to challenge it.

You are the person in control of the site, and their work directly impacts everyone's safety. Don't just sign off on their paperwork to get the job started faster.

Have a professional chat with them on-site. Walk through the job together and point out your concerns. You could say something like, "Your assessment mentions using a ladder here, but see how soft the ground is? I think we need to use a mobile scaffold instead."

Work with them to amend the document so it reflects the real-world conditions and meets your site's standards. This has to happen before they start work. It's not about creating conflict; it's about collaboration to make sure everyone goes home safe at the end of the day.

Managing workplace safety is a continuous process, not a one-off task. Having the right tools makes all the difference, turning a compliance headache into a straightforward part of your daily operations. Safety Space provides a simple, all-in-one platform to manage your risk assessments, SWMS, and all other H&S documentation without the paperwork. See how you can get control over your site safety by booking a free demo at https://safetyspace.co.