La evaluación de riesgos es la base del proceso de gestión de riesgos. Permite a las empresas determinar qué medidas deben adoptar para mejorar la salud y la seguridad en el trabajo, además de la productividad.
La Agencia Europea para la Seguridad y la Salud en el Trabajo (EU-OSHA) ha creado a Europe-wide campaign focusing on risk assessment. The campaign is especially aimed at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in high-risk sectors.
Since the adoption of the European Framework Directive in 1989, the risk assessment has become a familiar concept in the field of organization of prevention work, and hundreds of thousands of companies across Europe to assess risks regularly.
However, the figures for accidents and illnesses shows that improvements are needed. Each year, millions of people in the EU suffer injuries or serious damage to your health.
• Every three and a half minutes, somebody dies in the EU for work-related causes. This means that nearly 167,000 deaths occur annually due to occupational accidents (7,500) or occupational diseases (159,500).
• Every four and a half seconds, an EU worker suffers an accident that forces him to stay home at least three working days. The number of accidents at work causing a drop in three days or more is enormous, more than 7 million annually.
Moreover, diseases and accidents are costly .
• The human cost for workers and their families: after these statistics are real people, each with its own history.
• The cost for organizations: when something goes wrong at work affects business productivity, accidents and diseases originate expenses, increased rates of sick leave and turnover, and the template is less motivated.
• The cost to the government: accidents and diseases place a huge burden to the healthcare system.
A proper risk assessment offers advantages to the company :
• Creating safe working conditions enables companies to cut costs arising from accidents and illnesses. • An assessment
appropriate risk contributes to decreased rates of sick leave and reduce insurance premiums by having fewer claims.
• A motivated workforce is more productive and efficient, and reduces staff turnover rates. All this helps the company more competitive.
Risk assessment: the key to healthy workplaces
Risk assessment is the basis of the European approach to occupational safety and health at work and there are good reasons for this. If not assessed the risks are addressed adequately, can not start a management process suitable for them and not may take appropriate preventive measures. Therefore, a systematic risk assessment improves the safety and health at work and the overall performance of the company.
Risk assessment is the process of evaluating the risks to health and safety of workers arising from hazards in the workplace. Is a systematic examination of all aspects of work that:
• what could cause injury or damage,
• if possible eliminate hazards and, if not the case,
• what preventive and protective taken, or should be, to control risks.
When determining risk, the first thing to think about is whether it is possible to eliminate risk. Otherwise, the risks must be controlled.
Healthy Workplaces: Good for you. Good for business. A European campaign on Risk Assessment
Context In 2004, he published a European Commission Communication on the implementation of the Framework Directive 89/391 and its five individual policies. It emphasized the need to spread the task of risk assessment. It also emphasized the need to improve implementation and la calidad de la evaluación de riesgos.
• Las tareas de evaluación de riesgos, documentación y supervisión no están universalmente extendidas, incluso en Estados miembros con una tradición basada en la prevención.
• La evaluación de riesgos se considera a menudo una medida "de una sola vez" y no se hace de manera continuada.
• Los riesgos no se analizan ni se evalúan colectivamente. Por tanto, se adoptan medidas independientes, pero no existe un enfoque integral para el examen de las condiciones en el lugar de trabajo.
• En las evaluaciones de riesgos superficiales, la atención se centra en determinar los riesgos evidentes e inmediatos and forget the long-term effects such as those caused by chemical substances.
• Psychosocial risks and factors related to work organization are rarely taken into account in risk assessment.
• Companies not properly monitor the effectiveness of measures taken.
Campaign objectives
Risk assessment can be challenging, especially for small and medium enterprises, but need not be so. The objectives of the campaign on risk assessment are:
• Raise awareness legal responsibility and the importance and practical need to assess risks in the workplace. Risk assessment is not an end in itself but a powerful tool to determine the need for preventive measures.
• Demystifying the process and demonstrate, especially to SMEs, that risk assessment need not be complicated, bureaucratic or expert.
• Promote five-step approach to risk assessment (see below).
• Encouraging companies to make their own assessment of risks, if they have competent personnel in the workplace.
• Emphasize that risk assessment is a continuous process and not an obligation once.
• Highlight the fact that quality counts (and it is important to document, monitor and review the risk assessment).
• Promote participatory risk assessment, involving everyone in the workplace risk assessment.
• promote good practices, which are portable and help to facilitate the process.
course, the ultimate goal is to help reduce the number of people who are injured or damage their health, now and in the future.
The five-step approach
For most companies, a simple five-step approach to risk assessment is appropriate. However, there are other equally effective methods, especially if there are circumstances and more complex risks.
Step 1: Identify the hazards and those at risk
examine what might cause damage to the work environment and determine which workers may be exposed to these dangers.
Step 2: Assess risks and prioritizing them
assess the risks (severity, probability, etc.) And prioritize in order of importance. It is essential to prioritize the work necessary to eliminate and prevent risks.
Step 3: Deciding on preventive measures necessary
determine appropriate measures to eliminate or control risks.
Step 4: Taking action
Adopt prevention and protection with a prioritization plan (probably can not solve all problems immediately) and specify who does what and when, when to completed a task and the resources for implementation practical measures.
Step 5: Monitoring and Evaluation
review periodically reviewed to ensure it remains relevant. Be revised when major changes occur in the organization or as a result of the inspection results of an accident or incident. "
Campaign Strategy
With the campaign on Risk Assessment (2008-2009), EU-OSHA embarks first in a series of two-year campaign . The purpose of this change is to make campaigns to achieve more effectively the objectives of the Community Strategy Health and Safety at Work 2007-2012.
Extend the period of the European Week campaign two years provides more time for preparation and monitoring, and planning the campaign strategy and the commissioning of new material, translation, production and distribution.
The success of the campaign depends on the support and collaboration of a wide range of stakeholders and partners, which include the focal points of EU-OSHA, which are often the health organizations and national security Member States. Therefore, the new model is a campaign based on contacts. This gives more time to follow up, especially the promotion of good practice and to build more partnerships.
The campaign is also designed to involve a broad range of companies and organizations in spreading the message to their suppliers, contractors and neighbors and encourage them to participate. A particularly large companies are interested in helping the smaller ones in their supply chain and collaborate by sharing their experiences and knowledge.
The campaign has the support of the Slovenian EU presidencies in 2008 and French and Czech and Swedish in 2009, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European social partners.
0 comments:
Post a Comment