Supporting Occupational Health and Safety Risk Assessment Skills: A Case Study of Five Companies

Minna Rantala, Maria Lindholm and Sari Tappura
Additional contact information
Minna Rantala: Center for Safety Management and Engineering, CSME, Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, 33014 Tampere, Finland
Maria Lindholm: Center for Safety Management and Engineering, CSME, Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, 33014 Tampere, Finland
Sari Tappura: Center for Safety Management and Engineering, CSME, Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, 33014 Tampere, Finland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: Financial burden due to poor occupational safety practices remains high although occupational health and safety (OHS) have improved in recent years. Conducting risk assessment is one way to improve OHS. Workplaces may not have sufficient expertise in risk assessment. The aim of this study was to identify the needed OHS risk assessment skills, current support in the workplaces and the ways to improve risk assessment skills. This study was conducted with the Delphi survey for OHS experts ( n = 13) and with interviews ( n = 41) in the case companies. OHS experts agreed that the most significant skills were for employees to identify hazards and minimize risks in one’s work; for supervisors to influence others with a good example; and for OHS experts to understand and manage the wholeness of safety practices and understand and manage the meaning, concepts, and criteria of risk assessment. The current main support methods were learning at work, training and written instructions. However, many of the interviewees felt that they had not received risk assessment training and that the support depended on their activity. Finally, the OHS experts determined that the most feasible ways to improve risk assessment skills were training, coaching and giving clear instructions. Likewise, the interviewees suggested various training methods. Based on these results, concrete development plans to improve risk assessment skills can be made.

Keywords: development; expertise; occupational health and safety; risk assessment; skill; support; training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/3/1720/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/3/1720/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:3:p:1720-:d:740881

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().