Why do you need R3 - the Risk Rating & Ranking Tool?

What is the weak link in your Safety Management System?

Can you calculate your risks and hence rate and rank them for priority of control or treatment ?

All the debate and argument about “safe” and “unsafe” can be resolved with an objective method and tool to calculate risk levels.

Risk perceptions can vary widely unless managers and workers have a common method of calculating risk levels. Reduce the variability in risk perceptions. Use R3

After problems / challenges are revealed by risk identification / audits / incident investigations / Job Safety Analyses (JSAs) / process analyses of all kinds , how can you rate and rank those hazards / exposures / risks ? Firstly, you need a semi-quantitative technique to calculate the risk levels by a recognized scoring system. Then the risks can be ranked in order of seriousness and need for priority of risk treatment / control.

Even when choosing risk controls from available / possible options,  R3 - the copyrighted Risk Score Calculator gives risk scores before and after any proposed new / changed risk controls are implemented and hence can make the benefit part of cost benefit analysis straightforward and clear for the manager and his workers.

Behaviour based safety programs rely on identifying and constructing Target or Critical Behaviour Lists (or equivalent). They represent choices by management and / or workers to select what risks are to be addressed in some form of ranked order. Ranking without an objective basis for comparison is meaningless. Lists cannot be meaningfully constructed and interpreted without an objective basis for risk calculation and evaluation. Does the commonly used descriptor ‘at risk’ have any useful meaning ? How much ‘at risk’ ? . Don’t we all recognise and know that all behaviours involve some risk ?  All behaviours are ‘at risk’.  An important chain of logic is needed to understand the interaction of risk perception and risk behaviour. This chain of logic goes like the following :-

To be confident that employees at all levels need to understand and may possibly want or need to 

change their risk taking behaviours at work, 

we need to be confident that they can understand & evaluate the risks adequately, 

AND to be confident that they can understand & evaluate the risks adequately, 

we need to be confident that they can perceive the risks adequately, 

AND to be confident that they can perceive the risks adequately, 

we need to be confident that they can assess the risks adequately 

AND to be confident that they can assess the risk adequately, 

we need to be confident that they can calculate the risks adequately.

The Role of Risk Management in Behaviour Based programs

Ultimately, all our behaviors depend on perception of the net benefit / costs of the risk associated with the chosen behaviors. If a worker's perception of tolerable risk ( safe ) is NOT the same as the manager's, then that is the manager's problem not the worker's !

 If a manager labels a worker’s actions as “lazy, stupid, careless, reckless”, the ONLY conclusion that can be made is that his perception of the risk benefits / costs / likelihood's is different form the worker’s perception.

A manager cannot assume that workers know which risks the manager regards as tolerable / intolerable        ( safe / unsafe ) !

On a day-to-day basis , the risk takers and the risk makers are the appropriate risk managers.

This principle assumes that the risk takers and the risk makers know and fully appreciate all positive and negative dimensions of the risk.

They need a method for calculating risk! They need R3!