Introduction

This portal is a project of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA). It has been implemented in consultation with and with the kind support of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) and the representatives of the Joint German Occupational Safety and Health Strategy (GDA).

We would like to take this opportunity of thanking them for their participation. On the following pages you will learn what motivated our partners to contribute their expertise to this portal.

Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)

Occupational safety and health measures are intended to preserve the safety and health of workers. They also benefit companies, however. Healthy workers who feel safe at their workplaces are efficient and motivated. There are fewer cases of absence due to illness and lower costs due to accident-related operational disturbances. Occupational safety and health thus also helps maintain and increase the productivity of companies – and hence boost their competitiveness.

The risk assessment is in Germany and Europe one of the mainstays of a systematic and successful safety and health management in company operations. That is why the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) conducted an information campaign on risk assessment in 2008/2009.

Within the framework of this campaign, the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) developed the Risk Assessment Portal. The most important motive for this was the fact that there are in Germany about 1000 practical aids relating to the risk assessment. Users looking for suitable practical aids have to date had to conduct searches at the accident insurance institutions, at governmental supervisory authorities, at institutes and at publishing houses etc. This is very time-consuming and laborious and has in the past put mainly small and medium-sized companies off.

The Portal developed by the BAuA in consultation with the bodies responsible for the Joint German Occupational Safety and Health Strategy (GDA) is intended to render the process of the risk assessment more transparent and to facilitate access to practical aids. It also has the advantages that the contents can be constantly updated.

The target groups of the Risk Assessment Portal are employers – they bear the responsibility for implementing suitable organisational measures – as well as workers and their representatives, since the risk assessment can only be successfully conducted with their active involvement. The work of safety officers – in Germany about 520,000 in number , specialists for occupational safety and health, company doctors, safety co-ordinators and the staff of technical supervisory services should also be made easier with the new Portal.

With its Portal the BAuA hopes to propagate the notion and implementation of occupational safety and health further in Germany and Europe and to give it a firmer foundation.

Isabel Rothe
President of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

We welcome this excellent BAUA initiative to offer a central risk assessment platform. This portal gives employers and workers the necessary tools to carry out sector and hazard specific risk assessments. It enables them to understand the action that they need to take to improve workplace health and safety, as well as productivity.

A central piece of this initiative is the database containing risk assessment tools and checklists. EU-OSHA has created an interface that allows feeding German features to the European database. (link)

Everybody has an interest in keeping workers safe and healthy! Most work-related accidents and illnesses are preventable and risk assessment is the first step in the process.

Therefore, we have organised “Healthy Workplaces”, our Europe-wide information campaign. The 2008/2009 campaign aims at reducing work-related accidents and illness through better risk assessment. It targets, in particular, SMEs and high risk sectors, such as construction, agriculture and transport.

All campaign material is available in 22 EU languages and can be downloaded free of charge from the website: http://hw.osha.europa.eu

EU-OSHA’s aim is to encourage individuals and organisations of all sizes to get involved in the campaign, and to organise their own events and activities during the European Weeks or at any other moment during the campaign.

Together with you, we hope to promote the importance of carrying out risk assessment in every workplace and to reduce work-related accidents and illnesses in Europe and beyond.

Jukka Takala,
Director of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

Joint German Occupational safety and Health Strategy (GDA)

Healthy, qualified and motivated workers in companies and administrative bodies are a major precondition for coping with the major transformations in progress in the world of work; they are the driving force between innovations, they thus secure competitiveness and, in the final analysis, the financial success of the companies.

Occupational safety and health is of great importance for the smooth running of all working and production processes in an establishment. Good corporate occupational safety and health organisation and a perception of occupational safety and health geared to prevention mean that workers are more effectively protected against the hazards of the modern world of work, that they go absent less for reasons of work accidents or illness, that they take personal responsibility for their own safety and health and that they develop a greater work motivation. Safe and healthy workplaces therefore provide the basis for enduring efficiency in the workers and at the same time they help ensure an enhanced quality of life at work.

The "Risk Assessment Portal" supports the effective realisation of occupational safety and health in companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. It is aimed at employers and workers and provides a platform which can be used to identify hazards in the company with no great effort or expense, and it also helps make a correct estimate of the scope, intensity and extent of such hazards.

The risk assessment is the central preventive tool of occupational safety and health. It is the prerequisite for counteracting the hazards identified with just the right and effective protective measures, and this on a sound basis. Practical aids tailored to this particular task have been developed by those actively involved in occupational safety and health, especially accident insurance institutions and the occupational safety and health authorities of the federal states. The Risk Assessment Portal brings these aids together and can be used to highlight to companies quickly and with practical examples how they can find a concrete orientation on an up-to-date basis and what supportive practical aids are available for the risk assessment. To back this up, criteria for quality-assured practical instructions relating to the risk assessment are specified, criteria which the National Occupational Safety and Health Conference agreed on in May 2009.

The Portal fits into the European campaign on the risk assessment in 2008/2009 and it is a component part of the Joint German Occupational Safety and Health Strategy.