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Carrying out a risk assessment

To carry out a risk assessment via OiRA, it is recommended to follow the following steps.

Opening a risk assessment

Once you’ve started a risk assessment, you may find it back at any later time through the dashboard under the header “My risk assessments”. This is the same place from which you can start a new risk assessment.

The dashboard.

Starting a new session

To start a new risk assessment click the link “Start a new session”.

Select the apropriate sectoral tool that fits your situation, then start your work by clicking the button “Start risk assessment”.

Starting a new session.

Navigating a risk assessment

Every risk assessment is composed of 6 sections. You find these sections on the left hand side of each risk assessment.

  • Preparation
  • Involve
  • Identification + Evaluation
  • Action plan
  • Report
  • Status

Preparation

Preparation is where you automatically start. It’s where you give the risk assessment a name that you can recognize.

The link “Learn more about this tool…” will show further information about the selected tool and some basic usage tips about OiRA.

After clicking the button “Start”, some additional questions may be asked, depending on the tool you are using:

  • Select or skip situation(s) relevant or not based on whether they apply to your business activity. Chose “Yes” where appropriate.
  • List multiple business units, or branches, or stores, etc. The related risks will be repeated for each name you have entered.
The preparation screen.

The preparation step is very important as it accurately defines the type of business and the related risks your company deals with. After clicking “Save and continue” you will be automatically led to the next section “Involve.

Note: If no profiling part has to be filled out, this screen is skipped automatically.

Involve

This step is short, but it is nevertheless important. It allows you to download or print the contents of the risk assessment, so that you can share it with your co-workers, even if they do not have direct access to OiRA. In this way, they will be able to contribute to the task of assessing the situation at their workplace.

Identification + Evaluation

In this step you will identify hazards and problems in your company.

Identification and Evaluation.

On the left of the page below “Identification + Evaluation” you can see all of the topics included in the tool. The topic you are currently viewing is highlighted and its subtopics are listed below.

For each single risk you have to decide if the described statement of a positive state is true or not for your company:

  • Yes: if you answer the positve statment in the headline with “yes”, no further action is needed
  • No: if you answer the statement with “no”, further action has to be taken
  • Not applicable: select this if the risk is not relevant for your company

A risk statement answered with “No” is considered to be present in your organisation and it will therefore appear in the Action Plan step, so that preventive measures can be defined.

Further information on what that risk is about is listed below the identification input area:

  • Information: a short description, optionally with illustrating images, provides more details about the risk
  • Resources: additional information about the risk, such as legal and policy references, or attached documents
  • Comments: you can put your own additional information here which will appear in the report

After answering a risk statement and proceeding, the left hand menu will be updated with a coloured symbol, to indicate whether you have

  • answered positively (green check)
  • answered negatively (red cross)
  • decided to postpone it and answer later (yellow question mark)

For unanswered questions the grey symbol remains.

Evaluation

In this step you evaluate the priority of a risk that you have identified.

Evaluating a risk.

Note: In some OiRA tools, the evaluation is not shown at all. This depends on how the respective sector has set up a particular OiRA tool.

If you have answered the statement about a positive state with “no”, the section for evaluation will appear. Depending on the evaluation method set for each risk you will be asked to:

  • directly estimate the priority: high, medium or low
Setting the priority of a risk.

OR

  • answer three questions about the frequency, the severity and the probability of the risk, so that the priority can be calculated based on the answers.
Setting variables for a risk.

Priority risks set by the sector:

Some risks might be considered of high importance by the respective sector who created the OiRA tool. Such “priority risks” do not need to be estimated by you, since their priority will automatically be set to “high”.

Priority risks.

Custom risks

If you are not satisfied with the list of risks provided by the tool and think there’s something more you have to treat to make your company safe, you have the possibility to add custom risks defined by yourself.

After you have finished answering all risk topics under “Identification + Evaluation”, you arrive at the optional topic ”Other risks”. Here, the button “Add a custom risk” lets you create your own entries.

Custom risks.

A “custom risk” works in very similar way to the risks provided by the OiRA tool, but obviously you need to write your own texts: a short statement that describes a problematic situation (negative statement) and optionally a longer description. You can also upload an image for illustrating a certain situation.

As with the regular risks, you need to state whether the risk is present or not.

You can add as many custom risks as you need here.

Add a custom risks.

Action Plan

In this step you decide on the measures that you want to implement for eliminating or mitigating the risks that you have previously identified.

Start Action Plan.

Click the button “Create Action Plan” to start with your plan.

The main menu on the left now changes to show only the risks marked for further action, since the other subtopics will not be handled in the Action Plan.

For each risk answered with “No” during the evaluation process and for priority risks you can now define measures.

The Action Plan.

You can both select from a list of measures proposed by the system and define your own measures.

Add your own measure

NEEDED IMG: action plan with smaller image to show measures on bottom

Use the button “Add measure” to start defining a preventive measure. Fill in the following information:

  • Describe the general approach (to eliminate or reduce the risk)
  • Optionally state the level of expertise and/or requirements needed
  • Set the person responsible for the implementation.
  • Define a budget, if applicable
  • Optionally set dates on when to start implementing the measure and by when you plan to have finished

You can add as many measures as needed.

Add standard measure

Depending on how the respective sector has set up the OiRA tool, predefined measures can be available for individual risks. To choose one or more predefined measures, click the button “Select standard measure”.

A popup menu opens that shows all proposed measures. Click the “Add”-Button behind the ones that you want to use.

The predefined measures are then listed in your action plan. The description of what to do is fixed, but the other fields described above can and should be filled by you.

NEEDED IMG: action plan with button add an extra measure clicked and form open

Both standard measures and measured defined by you can be removed again if needed.

Report

After finalizing the Action Plan you can save the report for yourself and your employees.

If you want to leave a comment for the report that is generated, type your text here and save it.

Comment the report.

Read more about Reports and what you can do with them here.

Status

During the whole process you can watch over your session using the “Status” section.

The small pie chart in the menu on the left shows you the progress you already made.

The status page.

If you enter the status page, you get more detailed information on the current status of your risk assessment and the main settings as the used tool and the relevant dates.

Congratulations! You have successfully built a risk assessment with OiRA

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