Risk inventory and evaluation

Every organisation employing personnel has a legal obligation under the Working Conditions Act to have an up-to-date risk inventory and evaluation (RI&E) with a (verified) plan of action. However, every organisation is unique in terms of risks and is at a different stage of development. This influences the way in which the RI&E including plan of action is used to achieve a (financially) healthy organisation with sustainably employable employees.

Practice shows that often more can be gained from the RI&E by consciously applying the instrument at a certain or another level. That level is an extension of the current activities of the organisation and is aimed at the realisation of strategic organisational objectives in the (medium) long term.

RI&E as an instrument for complying with the law, management system, culture change

Before carrying out an RI&E, it is therefore important to have a clear focus on the level at which the RI&E should be used as an instrument to contribute to a (financially) healthy organisation with healthy people, in the short and long term, in line with the uniqueness and development phase of the organisation. Essentially, there are three levels:

• Meeting the legal requirement of an up-to-date RI&E with a plan of action for healthy and safe work and ensuring that business processes are accompanied by acceptable risks for people, organisation and environment.
• Management tool/system for healthy and safe work, which manages the coherence between organisational objectives, organisational structure, business processes, co-responsibility and behaviour of employees, suppliers and other stakeholders.
• Cultural change towards dual responsibility of employer-employee for health, safety and sustainable employability, self-management of employees and corporate social responsibility in the chain.

In practice, the three levels generally tie in with the successive phases of an organisation’s development in dealing with risks and uncertainties. The phases differ in the content of the steps of the risk management cycle. Each phase draws on, deepens and broadens on the previous phase(s).

Flexible: RI&E instrument that develops along with the organisation

Given the importance of an RI&E tool being tailored to the organisation-specific situation, we offer an online RI&E application that has the flexibility to match the uniqueness and development phase of an organisation in the current situation and in the future. Standard is ensured that the organisation, realising the RI&E in the correct way, meets its legal obligations. At the same time the choice is available to take steps towards the use of the RI&E as an instrument for management control and/or culture change.

Online RI&E with attention to ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ risk factors

By answering the questions in a secure environment within our online RI&E application, you automatically draw up a risk inventory including a plan of action with attention to both ‘hard’ technical safety aspects and ‘soft’ psychosocial organisational cultural aspects:

• Technical safety/physical aspects such as physical load, the equipment used, the influence of factors such as noise, lighting, temperature and exposure to hazardous substances.
• Psychosocial and organisation-cultural aspects such as employability policy, psychosocial workload (PSW), employee involvement, leadership, corporate social responsibility, information and education.

In the application you can turn off themes that are not applicable due to the nature of your organization (no warehouse or workshop, not working with electricity, etc.). Also, the application is programmed in such a way that, depending on your answer, you automatically go to the next relevant question.

Implementation of RI&E and legally required testing

You can choose to carry out the RI&E and accompanying plan of action, with or without the support of one of our professionals, or to outsource it entirely to one of our professionals. In all cases, we can take care of the obligation under the Working Conditions Act(*) to have the RI&E and accompanying plan of action assessed by a certified core expert followed by advice on priorities and measures to be taken.

(*) Under certain conditions, an employer does not need to have the RI&E with a plan of action reviewed by a certified key expert. This is the case if:

• all the employees in the company together work 40 hours or less.
• the company has no more than 25 employees and uses an RI&E instrument included in the CAO or from a recognized sector RI&E instrument.