Senior leaders rarely write risk assessments, but they sign off on the work those assessments are meant to protect. When a serious incident is investigated, the question is often the same: was the risk known, and what was done about it? Leaders who ask good questions before work starts can do a lot to make sure the answer is a good one.
Here are five questions that tend to reveal whether a risk assessment is a working control or a completed form.
- Are the hazards named precisely?
A hazard is anything with the potential to cause harm. An activity is not a hazard in itself. A crane lift, for instance, involves hazards such as the suspended load, line-of-fire exposure, unstable ground and crane movement, and the risk from each depends on the load, the wind, the ground and the competence of the crew. An assessment that lists “crane lift” as the hazard has not yet done the work. Precision here drives everything that follows, because a vague hazard tends to attract a vague control.
- Were the people who do the job involved?
Crews know where the real job departs from the written procedure. The UK Health and Safety Executive, whose five steps (identify hazards, assess the risks, control the risks, record findings, review the controls) are widely used, also warns employers not to simply copy an example assessment and put their company name on it. A desk-built assessment tends to describe an ideal job. Asking “who from the crew contributed to this?” is a quick way to find out which kind you are looking at.
- Does every control have an owner and a date?
An action such as “barricade the area” that is not assigned to a named person with a deadline often does not happen. Many failed controls were not missing from the risk assessment at all; they were written down and then lost between the planning office and the job site. A leader reviewing an assessment can simply ask to see the owner and due date for each further action, and what happens if the date passes.
- Is a low likelihood hiding a severe consequence?
Many industrial assessments combine likelihood and severity in a matrix. That is a reasonable decision aid, provided everyone remembers that organizations define their own scales and cutoffs, so any matrix is illustrative rather than universal. The trap is letting a low likelihood rating hide a fatal severity. High-consequence hazards generally deserve strong controls even when they seem unlikely, and rating risk both before and after controls makes the value of each control visible.
- When was it last reviewed, and what triggers the next review?
Conditions change: new people, new contractors, different equipment, different weather. HSE guidance calls for reviewing controls when there are changes or after incidents and near misses. A good answer names both a scheduled review date and the events that would trigger an earlier one.
The international picture
The duty to assess risk appears across jurisdictions in different forms. In the EU, the Framework Directive 89/391/EEC lists avoiding and evaluating risks among its general principles of prevention, and EU-OSHA’s free OiRA tools walk smaller organizations through the process. In Brazil, NR-1, the first of the Normas Regulamentadoras, covers general provisions and occupational risk management. ISO 45001 builds hazard identification and risk assessment into its requirements for a management system. For multinational groups, the practical takeaway is to hold one internal method and map it to each country’s rules.
Closing thought
None of these five questions requires technical expertise, and each can be asked in a few minutes. Together they signal that leadership expects assessments to control risk, not just record it. For a fuller explanation of the steps, the types of assessment and a worked example, see this step-by-step look at risk assessment in high-risk work.
- What a Good TRIR Looks Like, and When a Low One Deserves a Second Look
Type: Blog Writing
Target keyword: total recordable injury rate
In-text link →: https://e3q.ai/blog/total-recordable-injury-rate-trir/ (anchor: “total recordable injury rate benchmarks and definitions”)
“What is a good TRIR?” is a question safety leaders hear regularly from clients, boards and procurement teams. It sounds like it should have a single answer. It does not, and understanding why can help leaders use the total recordable injury rate more wisely.
Start with what counts
TRIR measures recordable work-related injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time equivalent workers over a year. Under OSHA’s recording criteria in 29 CFR 1904.7, a case is recordable if it results in death, days away from work, restricted work or transfer, medical treatment beyond first aid, or loss of consciousness, or if it involves a significant injury or illness diagnosed by a physician or other licensed health care professional.
Two details can change the number without any change in safety. The line between first aid and medical treatment is set by the regulation, not by who provides the care. And recordability is separate from fault: a work-related case that meets the criteria is recorded whoever was to blame. Two companies with identical injuries can report different rates if one classifies borderline cases more strictly, which is why consistent recordability decisions may be worth more than a low figure.
Benchmark against your own industry
There is no universal good TRIR, because risk varies widely by industry. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics figure published at the time of writing (2024: 2.3 recordable cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers in US private industry) is useful context, but sector rates differ sharply, so a more defensible benchmark is the BLS rate for your own industry classification.
A rate below that benchmark is generally a good sign. A rate far below it, especially at a high-hazard site, can be worth checking for under-reporting before it is celebrated.
When low deserves a second look
Several patterns can make a low TRIR less reassuring than it appears:
- Small denominators. OSHA’s guidance notes that a single injury has a much greater effect on rates at small establishments than at large ones.
- Reporting pressure. When bonuses or contracts depend on the rate, the pressure can land on reporting rather than on hazards. OSHA’s rules prohibit discriminating against employees for reporting a work-related injury or illness.
- Severity blindness. A laceration and a serious fracture each count as one case, so a site can post a low TRIR while carrying high exposure to fatal hazards such as work at height or energy isolation.
- Falling near-miss reports. If near-miss and hazard reporting are dropping at the same time as the rate, the two trends together may say more than either alone.
One practical reframe: a strong TRIR benchmark is not necessarily the lowest number in the market. It may be an honest number that trends down while reporting of near misses and hazards trends up.
Comparing across borders
TRIR is built on US recordkeeping rules. In the UK, RIDDOR requires employers to notify the enforcing authority within 15 days of an accident that incapacitates a worker for more than seven days. In the EU, Eurostat’s statistics count non-fatal accidents causing at least four full calendar days of absence. Many international operators also report a lost time injury frequency rate per 1,000,000 hours rather than 200,000, which makes the same performance look five times larger.
For groups with sites in the US, Europe and Latin America, the sensible approach is usually one internal case definition and one hours base applied everywhere, with each country’s regulatory figures reported separately.
Closing thought
A good TRIR is one you can explain: consistent definitions, honest reporting, the right benchmark and leading indicators alongside it. For the full definition, the comparison with DART and LTIFR and where to find your own inputs, see this article on total recordable injury rate benchmarks and definitions.
