Effective controls protect employees from workplace hazards. They help prevent injuries, illnesses and incidents, and minimise or eliminate health and safety risks. In doing so, they help employers and employees provide a safe and healthy working environment. The processes described on this page help employers prevent and control specific hazards.
Table of Contents
Controlling Workplace Hazards: Key Factors
To control and prevent hazards effectively, employers should consider the following factors.
- Involve employees.
- Identify and assess possible control measures using the hierarchy of controls.
- Set out how measures are selected and implemented in a hazard control plan, and work through it.
- Plan measures to protect employees during emergencies and non-routine work.
- Regularly check whether existing measures still work or whether other measures would offer better protection.
Build these points into your company organisation. It plays a key role in risk assessment and therefore in occupational health and safety as a whole. The more precise your documentation, the easier it is to pinpoint problem areas and choose suitable measures.
Prioritising Measures: The Hierarchy of Controls
Control measures follow a set order of priority: tackle hazards at source first and treat personal protective measures as a last resort. This order is known internationally as the hierarchy of controls. In Germany, it is laid down in Section 4 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (ArbSchG) and referred to as the STOP principle:
- Substitution: replace hazardous substances, processes or work equipment with less hazardous ones.
- Technical measures: keep hazards away from employees with extraction systems, guards or shielding.
- Organisational measures: organise workflows, exposure times and responsibilities so that the risk is reduced.
- Personal measures: personal protective equipment and safety training, where the previous levels are not sufficient.
Find out more in Principles of hazard prevention.
Identifying Control Measures
A wealth of information is available to help employers find ways to control identified hazards. Before selecting measures, it is essential to ask employees how feasible and effective they consider them.
How do you go about this? Collect, organise and review information together with employees to determine which hazards are present.
Selecting Measures
Employers should select the measures that are most feasible, effective and durable. Tip: wherever possible, choose equipment, machinery and materials that are inherently safer.
Developing and Updating a Hazard Control Plan
A hazard control plan describes how the selected measures will be implemented. An effective plan tackles the most serious hazards first. Interim measures may be necessary, but the overall aim is effective long-term hazard control. Track progress in implementing the plan and review regularly whether the measures remain effective: at least once a year and whenever conditions, processes or equipment change.
Protection During Emergencies and Non-Routine Work
The hazard control plan should include provisions to protect employees during non-routine work and foreseeable emergencies. Depending on your workplace, these may include:
- fires and explosions
- hazardous material spills
- unplanned plant shutdowns
- infrequent maintenance work
- natural disasters and severe weather events
- workplace violence
- terrorist or criminal attacks
- disease outbreaks
- other medical emergencies
Non-routine tasks, or tasks that are rarely carried out, call for particular caution. Before starting such work, review the hazard analysis and safety arrangements with all employees involved, and inform others about the nature of the work, the schedule and the necessary precautions.
Implementing Measures
Once measures to prevent and control hazards have been identified, implement them in line with the hazard control plan.
Reviewing the Effectiveness of Measures
To make sure control measures are and remain effective, employers should track implementation progress, inspect and assess the measures once they are in place, and follow preventive maintenance routines. In Germany, this effectiveness check is a legal requirement under Section 3(1) ArbSchG.
Who Monitors Occupational Health and Safety?
EU law (Framework Directive 89/391/EEC) requires every member state to ensure adequate supervision of occupational health and safety. In most countries this is the task of a national labour inspectorate. How inspections are organised, who carries them out and which sanctions apply varies from country to country.
Inspectors typically check whether health and safety is embedded in the organisation of your company, whether a risk assessment exists and whether the measures it defines have been implemented. Inspections can also cover workplaces outside your premises, such as construction sites or work in areas with particular environmental hazards.
If the statutory minimum requirements are not met, authorities can usually:
- issue binding orders with a deadline for compliance,
- impose fines,
- prohibit the use of work equipment that endangers life and health, such as a machine.
Example: Germany
In Germany, monitoring is shared between two bodies: the occupational health and safety authorities of the federal states (Section 21 ArbSchG) and the statutory accident insurance institutions, known as Berufsgenossenschaften and Unfallkassen (Section 17 of Book VII of the German Social Code). Both deploy their own inspectors and share their inspection findings with each other. This cooperation is part of the Joint German Occupational Safety and Health Strategy (GDA).
