By: Siti Syarizan Shamsu Kamal,

Types of Hazards and Their Main Category

In every workplace, hazards come in different forms. To make them easier to identify, they are usually grouped into categories. This structured approach helps ensure no hazard is overlooked when carrying out a risk assessment. The three main categories are safety hazards, health hazards and environmental hazards.

Hazard Identification Methods: SHE755 Formula
The SHE755 formula is a simple way to identify hazards. “SHE” stands for Safety, Health and Environment, while “7, 5, 5” refers to the number of hazard groups in each category. This method helps safety teams check all important risks without missing anything.

• Safety Hazards (7 groups): These are the obvious risks that can cause accidents or injuries, such as unsafe machines, exposed wires, slippery floors, or falls.
• Health Hazards (5 groups): These are less visible but harmful in the long term, like noise, vibration, chemicals, or biological risks such as viruses.
• Environmental Hazards (5 groups): These affect the environment and community, including waste, emissions, spills, or natural disasters.
  

The power of SHE755 is in its simplicity. Instead of remembering every hazard from scratch, teams can use the checklist to ensure assessments are complete and consistent.

Key Contributing Factors: The 5M
When looking at workplace hazards, the 5M helps identify what increases risk:

• Man: Human factors like fatigue, lack of training, or unsafe behavior.
• Machine: Faulty or poorly maintained equipment.
• Material: Hazardous chemicals, flammable substances, or unstable materials.
• Method: Unsafe work procedures or shortcuts.
• Media: Work environment issues like poor lighting, noise, vibration, extreme temperatures, or confined spaces.

By checking these five areas, organizations can find the root causes of hazards and improve workplace safety.

Hazard Identification Techniques
To keep the workplace safe, hazards can be identified using several methods:

• Workplace Inspection (WPI): Walking around to spot unsafe conditions like messy floors or faulty machines.
• Job Safety Analysis (JSA): Breaking a job into steps, finding risks, and improving safety, e.g., proper lifting techniques.
• Incident Records: Learning from past accidents or near misses to prevent repeats.
• Employee Input: Workers spot hazards others may miss; their feedback improves safety.
• Specific Techniques: Special checks like chemical tests, noise monitoring, or ergonomic assessments.
  

Using these methods together ensures all hazards are identified for a safer workplace.

Using Hazard Identification Forms

Hazard identification forms help record hazards, assess risks and list controls in a consistent way. They provide clear documentation for management and legal compliance.

The form usually includes:

• Task or process description
• Identified hazard
• Risk details (likelihood and severity)
• Existing controls
• Additional controls needed
  

This ensures a systematic approach to workplace safety.

By tailoring hazard identification to the realities of each industry, organizations can make their risk assessments more relevant, accurate and practical. This ensures not only compliance with safety standards but also better protection for workers in their day-to-day roles.