Risk assessments will need to be carried out by most companies. Those with only three or four employees may well be able to avoid such issues if they are in a certain industry, but for the majority of businesses, such assessments will be a very real and very time-consuming process.
The curious thing about risk assessments is that there is no specific way in which they need to be done, and yet, paradoxically, if they are done wrong then they can lead to heavy fines. Therefore, it can be beneficial in some cases to let outside professionals conduct any health and safety risk assessments for you to give you some added piece of mind.
Of course, it is not the assessments themselves that will dictate whether or not you are fined, but instead whether or not all the necessary procedures are put in place. However, if the assessments are not done in the right way, it will be hard to know which procedures need undertaking.
Health and safety risk assessments simply involve identifying all hazards your staff may be faced with and understanding what precautions therefore need to be taken. Companies need to understand who could be harmed and how, evaluate how high such a risk is and then record their findings in case they are checked up on.
Ultimately, the assessments themselves are merely precursors to the important act of acting upon your findings. However, if you are unsure that you are likely to detect every single hazard, calling in professional consultants will end up being far less time consuming and make sure you are covered for every eventuality.
There are online tools that will be able to help you, but each individual business is likely to be different and unless you have the relevant training, certain hazards may be easier to miss than you might think.
