Risk advisory > Conducting an RI&E in your company

Conducting an RI&E in your company

Having an RI&E is compulsory for employers under the Working Conditions Act. With an up-to-date RI&E (Risk Inventory and Evaluation), you know what to do to prevent or reduce risks in the company. So that employees, customers and visitors are not put at unnecessary risk by the work or business environment. Not now and not in the future. So it’s logical to have a solid RI&E in your company. Right? Check the RI&E in your company yourself or ask us for advice if you have yet to make one.

Occupational risks in numbers

Employers are obliged to report workplace accidents when there is hospitalisation, permanent injuryor a fatality. In 2021, the Labour Authority received 3,482 reports of workplace accidents. Thisincluded 60 fatalities. [1]A total of 4,520 occupational diseases were also diagnosed by 750 occupational physicians in 2021.Three diagnoses were reported most frequently: infectious and respiratory diseases, mentaldisorders and musculoskeletal disorders. [2]
So having a solid RI&E is really not an unnecessary luxury!

Check whether you need to conduct an RI&E with these 6 questions

Do you want to know whether you need to make an RI&E and whether the version currently in place is adequate? Check with the following 6 questions:

1. Staff or volunteers?

As soon as staff are employed, an RI&E is compulsory. Even if they are temporary workers, volunteers, hired workers or trainees. Do you only employ volunteers? Then an RI&E is only compulsory if hazardous substances or biological agents are handled.

2. Have all risks been mapped out?

Before conducting the RI&E, the insights of the company doctor and other experts involved in the absence and health & safety policy must be identified. These insights must be taken into account when making the RI&E.

An RI&E must pay attention to :

• Inventory of the occupational risks present, their root causes and the health and safety risk reduction measures already taken.
• Inventory of the occupational risks present with regard to employees belonging to the ‘special categories of employees (e.g. partially incapacitated, pregnant, young and elderly), their root causes and the risk-reducing measures already taken.
• Attention to employees’ access to a prevention officer or a health and safety expert (company doctor, occupational hygienist, safety expert or occupational and organisational expert).
• Identification of the chances of employees experiencing sexual harassment or violence.

3. Have the risks been evaluated, assessed and prioritised?

Those who do the same work with a mouse and a monitor for a long time may develop complaints. But that risk is still less than the risk when working with hazardous substances or at great heights. The different risks should therefore be sorted; from most important to least. Either the greatest risk or the risk most likely to occur should be listed first.

4. Is there a plan of action for each risk?

If the risks are known, something must be devised to reduce them. An approach must be worked out for each point mentioned. Which measure will be taken, how effective do we estimate the measure to be, when will we implement the measure, by whom, where and when, how will the measure be implemented and are there any undesirable consequences of the measure? Planning is also very important here. After all, a major risk should not be ‘ever solved’, it should be clear when it will be addressed and when it will be settled.

5. Has the RI&E been tested?

An RI&E usually has to be tested. This is then done by a certified occupational health and safety expert, for example those of the FeniksGroup. This review is not necessary for organisations with fewer than 25 employees that use a registered sector RI&E instrument or an RI&E instrument that is recognised in the collective labour agreement. Do the employees in your organisation work less than 40 hours a week? Even then you do not have to have the RI&E tested.

If an in-depth investigation has been conducted on one or more subjects in the RI&E (and this has been added to the general RI&E in an in-depth RI&E), a certified occupational health and safety expert in that field must test that in-depth RI&E. Sometimes this can be the same expert as the one who assessed the general RI&E, because the subject of the in-depth RI&E is in his own field. If this is not the case, an expert with specialisation in this field must assess the in-depth RI&E.

6. Is the RI&E still up to date?

An RI&E is never finished. Does a procedure change in the company? Is a warehouse being converted into an office? Has a new machine come into use? Any change in the company can result in a change to the RI&E. After all, the familiar escape routes might be blocked by the conversion. The new machine may have dangerous cutting plates that were not used before. And a different business process may result in there suddenly being more or fewer people in a building. All these changes may mean that the solutions devised to reduce risks no longer work. And then new measures are needed. These must be recorded in the updated version of the RI&E. Is the RI&E in your company still version 0.1? Chances are it needs updating!

Have your RI&E conducted by the FeniksGroup

Mapping the risks in the workplace is an intensive job. Something we at the FeniksGroup deal with on a daily basis; from mapping workplace risks to reducing them by, for example, making evacuation plans, writing company emergency, in-house emergency or evacuation plans, helping set up the company emergency or in-house emergency organisation and providing training in safety.

Need help with the RI&E? Ask the FeniksGroup!

Do you want to know whether the situation in your company is also safe? Or that the RI&E needs to be updated again? Then ask us for help, so you can have your RI&E made together with us. Would you like to check the current version or develop an RI&E for a new site? We will be happy to advise you on this and also conduct it if you wish!

[1] Annual report 2021 Dutch Labour Authority

[2] https://www.beroepsziekten.nl/verschenen/beroepsziekten-cijfers-2022