
From the name, you can probably guess that an electrical safety risk assessment is designed to assess the risk when it comes to electrical safety within a business. It doesn’t take Sherlock to work this out - knowing the basics and understanding what an electrical safety risk assessment entails, however, are two completely different things.
What’s an Electrical Safety Risk Assessment?
In case you didn’t know already, all businesses have a responsibility to keep all customers and employees safe. Essentially, anybody who enters the premises, whether a restaurant or a grocery store, should have a safe experience until they leave again. With this in mind, electrical safety has climbed into prominence recently. It’s something we use daily, yet one that doesn’t often get the attention it deserves.
Therefore, an electrical safety risk assessment by Jim's test and tag services, is designed to highlight all the potential electrical risks in a building or at any other business property. A high-quality service will enter your business and seek any faults or problems with the electrical system.
Ultimately, the aim is to spot hazards that could present a danger to customers, employees, or anybody else on the site. Once you’re aware of the hazards, you can then take appropriate measures to deal with them.
As well as assessing the physical electrical systems and equipment, the service might also ask about your training with regard to electrical safety. If you don’t currently have training in place for employees, this is a risk because they don’t know how to react to dangerous situations, and this can exacerbate problems.
What’s more, the external service will ask about the mentality of the business. Are employees encouraged to report problems? Do business leaders maintain electrical equipment? How do they fix problems?
Benefits of an Electrical Safety Risk Assessment
In 2021, you’re likely to have all sorts of expenses as you recover from the global pandemic and finally welcome customers once again (it’s a great feeling, right?). Why should you spend money on an electrical safety risk assessment? Here are just some of the benefits:
- Ensure the business falls in line with OH&S workplace safety guidelines
- Keep all customers and employees safe
- Motivate the workforce and show that you take safety seriously
- Provide the right training so that employees know how to deal with problems when they arise
- Prevent fires and other serious events
Acting After the Assessment
It’s not enough to just have an electrical safety risk assessment, you then need to act on the advice from the professionals. Fortunately, the very best companies perform the assessment and offer potential solutions to issues. The solution will depend on the severity of the hazard and various other factors.
In some cases, you’ll be advised to simply remove the hazard as soon as possible. With the hazard away from the business premises, it’s no longer a threat to yourself or others. In other cases, you’ll replace the hazardous component with a safer one. Finally, you might isolate the hazard and put a system in place to ensure that nobody comes into contact with it.
Summary
An electrical safety risk assessment helps businesses to check over electrical systems and practices. If no problems are found, you have peace of mind (and you follow OH&S guidelines and avoid penalties and fines). If problems are highlighted, you can fix them and prevent a serious fire or another danger. When posed like this, it makes you wonder why businesses avoid these assessments.
Why not contact an electrical safety risk assessment provider today?