As part of managing the health and safety of your business, you must control the risks in your workplace.
.To do this you need to think about what, in your business, might cause harm to people and decide whether you are taking reasonable steps to prevent that harm. This is known as a risk assessment You are probably already taking steps to protect your employees, but your risk assessment will tell you whether you have covered all you need to.
A risk assessment is not about creating huge amounts of paperwork, but rather about identifying sensible measures to control the risks in your workplace.
You should record your significant findings, but there is no need to record everyday risks. Keep it simple and focus on controls. If you have fewer than five employees you don’t have to write anything down.
The law does not expect you to remove all risks, but to protect people by putting in place measures to control those risks, so far as reasonably practicable. Your risk assessment need only include what you could reasonably be expected to know – you are not expected to anticipate unforeseeable risks.
For most low-risk businesses controlling risks is straightforward. HSE has created tools to help you. We have online risk assessment tools to help businesses working in offices and shops complete their risk assessment quickly