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Health Protection & Risk Reduction Plan

If the workplace risk assessment results indicate unacceptable or reasonably avoidable items of risk, the employer must prepare a health protection and risk reduction plan.

It is important to prioritize actions based on the severity of identified risks, which are assessed by evaluating the probability of something happening and the severity of the consequence if the incident occurs. This will give top priority to treating risk factors that can have the most serious consequences for employees and are most likely to occur, while less serious risk factors will be addressed later.

Improvement Plan

The plan must include a description of how the risk is to be managed, such as through the organization of work, education, training, design, choice of equipment, materials or chemicals or with the use of protective equipment. However, it is best to “design the risk away”, for example, by making working at a height unnecessary or safe or replacing one hazard with another that is less hazardous. These include, i.a. the use of mild and environmentally friendly cleaning agents instead of substances that can cause harm to employees or the environment.

Part of the workplace risk reduction plan is to set up a defined policy on the communication principle at the workplace which stipulate that bullying, sexual harassment, gender-based harassment and violence will not be tolerated in the workplace. In addition, there must be a response plan that states, among other things, what the victims can do if they feel that they are being bullied, harassed, abused or threatened. This applies whether the harassment comes from colleagues, a supervisor or customers. It must also state what action will be taken following the complaint.

More about the psychosocial work environment.

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