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Construction projects are complex with unique challenges and risky maneuvers. With so many teams sharing their part in the progress and with tight deadlines, there’s a dire need to manage workplace risks to avoid major setbacks to the overall progress and avoid delay penalties. So, your survival as a profitable construction company relies heavily on the safety of the workplace.   

Contractors and workplace managers must establish a proactive and workable mechanism to identify risk effectively and manage it promptly. Such an approach will not only make your workplace safe but it will give an instant boost to productivity that will further lead to increased profits and establishing a good relationship with clients.  

Risks in the construction workplace are a bit more complex than in some other industries. Every project is unique with unknown site conditions. This uniqueness combined with complex scope and procedures requires some digital assistance to reduce and alleviate risk promptly.   

Today we want to draw our focus on Take 5 risk assessments that will help you and your staff to safely complete their tasks and complete construction projects within the stipulated deadlines.

So, how one can define risk assessment?

Let’s now start with the basics of risk assessment. In construction industry projects, risk assessment aims to identify dangerous factors. It includes hazards that will cause someone injury, illness, harm, or other damage at the workplace.

 

For example, during deep excavation of the foundation, you may encounter bad ground conditions. Such a situation can lead to the risk of collapse, falling of materials, and triggering of the landslide. Similarly, while constructing a building, the temporary scaffolding and shoring system can collapse if a sufficient bracing system is not installed.

 

Digital Take 5’s are a quick and easy tool to help mitigate risk at the construction workplace. Shadow Forms iOS app that has everything for your OH&S requirement. Now every individual in your team or staff member can use this app as their risk assessment tool. With such, they can identify and control construction hazards immediately without having to fill out laborious paper forms. It is much easier to tackle this tool during your day-to-day work and maintain awareness of the working environment.   

 

What is the Take 5 Safety OH&S digital form app?

The app is based on the Take 5 safety checklist. It is the most quickest assessment process to help increase your awareness about construction hazards and reduce the risk of any incident that might occur in your workspace.

Shadow Forms version of Take 5 allows you to undertake risk analysis while on the go. You can easily give a rating to any identified hazard based on the level of risk associated with the activity. Once you’ve identified the risk, the next step is to put controls in place to eliminate and reduce the risk to an acceptable level and minimize damage or disruption.

 

Risk analysis includes a 2 step process:

– The probability of the risk occurrence

– Assessing the probable level of damage or harm of the hazard or risk

 

How do you complete the take 5 checklists with Shadow forms – Digital take 5 forms?

 

Step – 1 – Stop and complete a take 5 checklists before any task

 The first is to interrupt or pause whatever you’re doing if there’s a change in conditions or before starting any task. This stop and take 5 mean you need to engage your brain and encourage mindfulness about any potential hazards in the task at hand. You need to think carefully about the activity you’re going to perform. This interruption and planning time can save you from committing costly mistakes and major injuries.

 On the app, there’s a checklist that helps you identify the risks for yourself, equipment, property, and surroundings. Every individual in a workplace has to undergo this checklist before commencing any task. The managers can encourage this directive to all staff members for maintaining their own take 5 apps.

 If there’s any change in the procedure of any task, it is important to identify new hazards and manage them beforehand. Same stands with high-risk tasks for which you’re unaware if it needs any permit. So, think about the work and engage your supervisor if there’s any relevant training or permit requirement. Be sure to have appropriate PPEs like hard helmets, sunscreen, eye protection, fall-arrest harness, and breathing apparatus, etc. In addition to this, you should be clear in your mind about the process and the requirement of special tools or gadgets you need to perform the task.

Step – 2 – Go through the questions and think about your tasks

 Now that you’re mindful about the task you’re going to perform, it’s time to answer questions and enter that in the app form.

 You can start in the app by entering your name, location, and recording the date and time of the checklist for future reference. In the first part, there are several questions that you can answer whether you can manage it or not. You should start from No. 1 through No. 14. The purpose of these questions is to access and identify any relevant permits, training, or special PPEs that are required before commencing any task.

 

 

Step – 3 – Identify the hazards that can cause harm to you or your surroundings

 After answering all those questions, you will be able to identify any potential hazards involved in performing the particular tasks. For the tasks where you won’t have to tick any of the boxes in the app, that task is safe to perform. So, for any task that you have identified as a potential hazard, you should mitigate that risk before proceeding.

 

Risk Rating Score

In this step, we’re going to access the level of risk by determining the risk rating score. Risk assessment has been made easy in the app with the help of a built-in risk rating popup. You can access the table by just taping the relevant button on the screen.

 

So, the risks that you’ve identified in step 1 while answering questions, can be rated further by entering in the section below of the app. Just group the hazard by severity nature. Like if you think questions 1 and 2 show the risk is of rating 1, you can enter 1, 2 on the hazard number column and 1 or red mark in the risk rating column.

 

In the risk rating popup, you’ll find different numbers associated with the level of risk. For tasks that can cause death is included in the catastrophic column of the table. Also, the likelihood of the consequence will further explain the nature of the risk. So, you need to determine the consequence and likelihood to rate the risk.

 

The risk is going to be high, medium or low depending on the rating that you’ve just determined. For a high-risk task, you should stop the work immediately. For medium risk, contact your supervisor before starting the task and for low risk, you can ask the tradesperson in charge to agree on control measures requirement.

 

 

Step – 4 – Control the risk

 After determining the risk rating, the next step is to plan and implement the control to put in place for managing the risk. We can call this section a Safe work Method statement. Be sure to precisely write the steps you’re going to take for controlling the hazards.

 

Try to avoid unclear terms or methods. You can access the control methods from the relevant section. Your selection of the control method is to be prioritized by trying for eliminating the hazard to the lowest possible risk.

 

In the end, you can further access if the new control methods are creating any more hazards or not.

 

 

 

Step – 5 – Proceed and Monitor

 Once you’re done with the safe method statement and controlling methods for risks, engage with the supervisor or tradesperson in charge and proceed with the work tasks.

 

 

 

While doing so, be sure to monitor the effectiveness of the control methods and repeat the process if there’re some operational changes later on.  

 

 

Time to get Your Take 5 Risk Assessment Digital App

 

So, you see how easy and effective this risk and hazard assessment app is. All you need to do is to tap and record. You got everything in your reach. This app is a helpful tool for construction professionals and field workers. It empowers them to minimise health and safety risks at the onset through developing the habit of task-control-hazard routine in the association or project.

 

 

Contact us to convert any of your OHS documents to digital today… or download our FREE app that has a public library or documents included.  https://apps.apple.com/au/app/shadow-forms-digital-forms/id1241624629