IOSH Managing Safely®: Managing Occupational Health and Safety Risks

1. Introduction to managing workplace safety

• Ethical, legal and financial reasons.
• Managers’ responsibilities and obligations for workplace health and safety.

2. Risk assessment

• The meaning of “hazard”, “hazardous”, “event” and “risk”.
• The meaning of “risk assessment”.
• The meaning of “likelihood” and “consequence”.
• The risk assessment process and establishment of a risk assessment system.
• The benefits of risk assessment.

Practical work:

• Identify hazards, assess and manage risks.

3. Risk management

• The meaning of “reasonably practicable”.
• Assessing risks using a risk matrix and managing those risks.
• Risk reduction methods applying the hierarchy of control principles.
• The impact of implementing risk controls on incidents.
• The meaning of “residual risk”.

Practical work:

• Identify hazards, assess and manage risks.

4. Understanding responsibilities

• Main legal requirements for protecting workers’ and others’ health and safety in a business.
• The meaning of “reasonably foreseeable”.
• The 3 knowledge tests for determining reasonably foreseeable risks:
  • common knowledge; 
  • industry knowledge;
  • expert knowledge.
• The difference between criminal and civil law in occupational health and safety.
• Potential penalties for non-compliance.
• Sources of legal advice.
• Key components of a health and safety management system.
• The importance of leadership in implementing that system.

5. Identifying common risks

• The 6 main hazard categories and classification methods.
• Common workplace hazards, their consequences, symptoms and management methods.

6. Investigating accidents and incidents

• The meaning of “incident”, “accident” and “near miss”.
• Reasons for investigating incidents.
• The benefits of incident investigations.
• The meaning of “immediate causes”, “underlying causes” and “root causes”.
• Actions to take after an incident.
• Writing an incident report.
• Establishing a structured approach to incident investigation.

7. Evaluating performance

• Types of performance indicator information useful for improving occupational health and safety.
• Characteristics of key performance indicators.
• The difference between proactive and reactive performance indicators.
• What is a health and safety audit?
• The 2 audit types: internal and external health and safety audits.
• Evidence used in an audit.

8. Understanding human factors

• Organisational aspects, including safety culture and leadership.
• Individual aspects:
  • attitude;
  • personality;
  • capabilities;
  • training and development;
  • motivation and risk perception;
  • human failure.
• Job-related aspects.
• Aspects relating to violations of safety measures.