The Five Steps to a Risk Assessment

If the idea of assessing risk feels overwhelming, a structured method makes it manageable. Breaking the task into five clear steps turns a vague legal obligation into a sequence anyone can follow. This approach satisfies the duty in section 19 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and produces an assessment you can actually act on.

Step 1: Identify the hazards

Start by walking the workplace and looking for anything with the potential to cause harm. Talk to the people who do the work — they often know about hazards that are invisible from an office. Consider physical hazards (machinery, heights, vehicles), chemical and biological hazards, ergonomic hazards such as manual handling, and psychosocial factors such as stress. Reviewing past incidents and near misses, and manufacturers' instructions, helps catch what an eyeball survey misses.

Step 2: Decide who might be harmed and how

For each hazard, identify who could be affected and the way they could be hurt. This is not just your own employees. Think about contractors, visitors, delivery drivers, members of the public, and groups who may be at greater risk — new or young workers, expectant mothers, and lone workers among them.

Naming who could be harmed, and how, turns an abstract hazard into a real situation you can do something about. “Wet floor” means little; “cleaner could slip and break a wrist on the unmarked wet floor” demands action.

Step 3: Evaluate the risk and decide on controls

Now weigh how likely harm is and how serious it would be, taking account of what is already in place. Where existing controls are not enough, apply the hierarchy of control: try to eliminate the hazard, then substitute, then use engineering and administrative controls, and only then rely on PPE. The aim is to reduce each significant risk to a level that is as low as is reasonably practicable.

Step 4: Record your findings

Write it down. Section 19 requires a written assessment, and a record is also what lets you act, communicate and review. Keep it clear and practical: the hazard, who is affected, the controls, the risk rating, and any further action with a person and a date attached. These findings then inform your Safety Statement.

Step 5: Review and update

A risk assessment captures a moment in time, and workplaces change. Review it whenever you introduce new equipment or processes, after an incident or near miss, when working practices alter, and at sensible intervals even when nothing obvious has changed. An out-of-date assessment is worse than none, because it gives false reassurance.

Make the steps a habit

The power of the five steps is that they are repeatable. Once a team has worked through them a few times, identifying hazards and weighing risks becomes second nature, woven into how work is planned rather than a form filled in once a year. That is exactly the kind of everyday awareness that prevents accidents.

For the underlying duty and a worked example, see our guide on how to write a risk assessment in Ireland. Used together, the two articles give you both the “why” and the “how” of assessing risk under Irish law.