How to Increase Safety Awareness in Just Five Minutes with Take 5 Checklists
Everyone agrees that safety in the workplace is important. It helps ensure your own safety and the safety of those around you, allowing us to return home alive to our family and friends at the end of each day. This is what we all want.
And yet everyday, believe it, shortcuts in safety are taken to get jobs done faster. Or safety is compromised due to work activities being so ingrained in our minds that we go on autopilot, and forget or dismiss, against our better judgement the need to check for potential safety hazards.
Checklists are there to remind of the simple things that our brain tends to forget. They can be used to prompt us to stop and take a moment to assess the situation and our immediate work environment. Checking for potential safety hazards allows us to manage risk, whilst minimising the chance of injury, and with the right processes, it can take only five minutes.
Asking yourself – am I safe to work?
Techniques such as the Take 5 risk management process are intended to identify any health, safety and environmental hazards present at the specific time and location of where the work activity is to be undertaken.
In its most basic form the Take 5 forces us to ask “Am I safe to work?” by narrowing our focus towards the task at hand, ticking off items on a checklist before we engage in the activity. By taking just five minutes to conduct a Take 5 safety check, it can often make the task much faster, easier and safer to complete.
The basic Take 5 process involves the following steps:
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STOP – think about the potential dangers associated with the job.
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LOOK – identify any hazards.
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ASSESS – the risk. Consider any possible threat of damage or injury.
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MANAGE – controls. Implement suitable control measures to reduce risk. Ensure other persons on site who are affected by the same matter are informed about the hazard.
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SAFELY – complete the task.
Author: Monica
Edited by: Katie Carr
Source: www.safetyculture.com.au
