How to Take Your Business From Risk to Resiliency with a Risk Assessment Template

At its core, a risk assessment consists of:

• Identifying risks/recognizing where potential hazards exist within the workplace
• Assessing the likelihood and severity of those hazards
• Evaluating the degree of risk and prioritizing actions accordingly
• Implementing a mitigation plan
• Monitoring the effectiveness of the actions taken

Why Use a Risk Assessment Template?

Whether you are assessing risk at a farm or manufacturing facility, a risk assessment template helps standardize and streamline the process of identifying, evaluating, and tackling potential risks within your business.

Risk assessment templates can be game changers for a few reasons:

Consistency

Risk assessment templates guarantee a consistent approach across all assessments in your business. Because they standardize the assessment process, they ensure you identify, analyze, and evaluate risks in a uniform manner. The results are more reliable, which can be a game changer when it comes to comparing data, making informed decisions, and preventing future risks.

Efficiency

Templates streamline the assessment process by providing a pre-structured format that’s easy to follow. This efficiency allows teams to focus more on analyzing risks and less on administrative tasks, ultimately speeding up the assessment process. Risk assessment templates often include built-in guidelines and prompts that help avoid critical mistakes, making the assessments more accurate and reliable.

Documentation and Compliance

Risk assessment templates make it easier to meet compliance requirements by documenting assessments in a clear, organized format. This proper documentation ensures that all risks are recorded, actions are tracked, and that your business will be able to demonstrate due diligence if and when its safe working environment is questioned. 

Templates also provide a clear record of risk assessments that can be vital for regulatory compliance and accountability. This documentation both serves as proof of due diligence and supports the tracking and reviewing of risks over time, which helps ensure mitigation strategies remain effective. 

Customizability for Specific Needs

Risk assessment templates can be customized to fit the nuances of a bunch of different industries and projects. With this flexibility, you can address specific risks without losing the benefit of a standardized assessment approach.

Ease of Training and Implementation

Templates also simplify the training process by providing an intuitive framework that’s easy for any employee to follow. This helps keep everyone on the same page, leading to more effective implementation and consistent results across the organization.

Real-Time Data Collection and Analysis

Digital risk assessment templates allow you to collect and analyze data in real time. This enables rapid decision-making, which comes in handy when you need to address a potential risk as soon as possible.

How to Use a Risk Assessment Template 

Step 1: Understand the Template Structure

Start by familiarizing yourself with the template’s layout. Most will include sections for identifying potential risks, assessing the severity and likelihood for each, and planning mitigation strategies. Explore each section of the template and be sure to consider the purpose and how that section will guide you through the risk assessment process. Getting your ducks in a row beforehand helps keep you from overlooking important details down the road.

Step 2: Gather Relevant Information

Collect all the necessary data before you start filling out the template. The data collection process will vary depending on your business processes, but will typically start with reviewing past risk assessments, gathering input from team members, and consulting industry guidelines and regulations. 

Here are some of the most common safety standards to review:

• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Standards
• ISO 45001 - Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems
• National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standards
• Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR)
• American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Standards
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Standards
• Local and Industry-Specific Regulations

Having this data at your fingertips will make the risk assessment process easier and more comprehensive. The more thorough your preparation, the more accurate the risk assessment will be. 

Step 3: Identify Potential Risks

Now it’s time to identify all possible risks associated with your project, task, or business operation. Get creative and consider risks from all angles. What could cause injury or illness in your business? Consider the following:

• How people navigate the facilities
• The condition of your facilities
• How equipment is used
• What chemicals are used
• Typical work practices 
• Previous accidents and ill health records
• Non-routine operations like maintenance, cleaning, or shifts in production cycles 
• Work-related stress

You’ll also need to consider who each hazard will impact (for example,  employees, contractors, visitors, and members of the public). Keep in mind that some employees (young employees, migrant employees, new/expectant parents, and people with disabilities) are subject to unique safety requirements. 

Leave a detailed description for each risk you identify– these will come in handy for analyzing and prioritizing your risks in the next step.

Step 4: Assess and Prioritize Risks

The next step is to assess the potential likelihood and impact of each identified risk. Use the template’s rating system to score each risk. This will show you which risks to tackle immediately and which risks can be put on the back burner. The goal here is to focus your resources on the most significant threats to your business so that you tackle the highest risks first.

Oftentimes, templates will include a frequency vs. severity matrix to guide your rating system.

Risks can occur frequently with low severity, or infrequently with high severity. A risk in quadrant I won’t be as high on your priority list as a risk in quadrant II, III, or IV. Frequency can reference how often the risk occurs as well as how often the risk produces loss. 

Step 5: Develop Mitigation Strategies

Once risks are prioritized, it’s time to create strategies to either eliminate or reduce their impact. Document these strategies in the template, specifying:

• What actions are required
• Who is responsible for each action
• Your timeline for implementation 

Having a clear plan in place will help you manage risks and provide a roadmap for your team to follow, keeping everyone aligned and proactive in their approach.

You may need to level up your mitigation approach for more serious risks. In these cases, you may want to consider:

• Reworking the job
• Overhauling materials, machinery, or processes
• Reducing exposure to particularly risky materials, machinery, and processes
• Enforcing the use of personal protective equipment (PPE)

Step 6: Review and Monitor

Don’t just file your assessment away once it’s complete. Create a routine where you review and update your risk assessment templates to reflect changes in your business environment or operations. If you monitor the effectiveness of your mitigation strategies, you can adjust your approach as needed. Your templates shouldn’t be static– they should serve as living documents that evolve with your business, helping you stay agile in the face of potential risks.

Step 7: Communicate Findings

Finally, share the results of your risk assessment with your team and any other stakeholders. Effective communication helps keep everyone aware of identified risks, mitigation plans, and their role in executing these plans. You can use your risk assessment template to facilitate these discussions– that way, it’s easier to convey complex information in a clear, structured way. This level of transparency is key to building a risk-aware culture within your business.

Because risk mitigation often involves a shift in daily operations, you may get some resistance from management, board members, or employees. In these cases, emphasize how the benefits of risk management impact both your business and its employees. You can also implement a positive reinforcement plan that rewards employees for reducing the number of incidents with risk assessment forms.

How to Use a Risk Assessment Template in Forms on Fire

Forms on Fire is an excellent platform for creating and using risk assessment forms because of its unmatched customization, intuitive drag-and-drop features, and seamless integration with other business systems. Whether you're working from an office or out in the field, you can use Forms on Fire to design comprehensive templates that meet all your business needs.

Here’s an overview of the steps you need to take to create and use a risk assessment template in Forms on Fire:

Choose or Build Your Template

Forms on Fire provides a variety of pre-built templates that you can use as a starting point. To access these, navigate to the template library and browse the available options. Once you find a template that best fits your needs, select it and start customizing. If you’d rather build a template from scratch, click the “Create New” option. This allows you to design a template according to your specific risk assessment requirements.

Customize

Once you've selected or created a template, it's time to customize it. Forms on Fire offers a range of tools to help you mold the template to your exact specifications. Start by adding new fields like risk categories, descriptions, and mitigation strategies. You can also define risk levels and add drop-down menus to simplify your data entry.

Test and Deploy

Before rolling out your new risk assessment form, test it to make sure it works as expected. Click the “Preview” feature to simulate data entry and check that all fields work correctly. Gather feedback from a small team of users to identify any necessary tweaks. Once you’re satisfied with the template, publish it to your app and notify your team to start using it. 

Start Building a Safer Business Environment

Protecting your business with effective risk management isn’t just a compliance necessity– it’s an opportunity for strategic advantage. A risk-assessment template can serve as the cornerstone of this effort, enabling your team to systematically identify, evaluate, and mitigate potential risks before they harm your business. Ready to start your journey to a more resilient business?

Get the Forms on Fire free trial and you can start customizing your risk assessment template today.