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