Difference between occupational hazard and occupational risk. Worker perception

Why do some people like bungee jumping, climbing, or skydiving?

Many factors can influence how each person perceives risk. This can apply to any aspect of life: hobbies, sports, work, ...

Risks at work! Let's talk a bit more about this.

Danger and risk are not the same thing in occupational safety.

What is the difference between hazard and risk at work?

- Hazard: situation of potential harm to the user.

- Risk: probability of occurrence + severity of consequences.

When perceiving the stimuli of a given situation, the brain receives tactile sensations, olfactory, visual, and auditory information, etc.

This information is then processed and, finally, an action is taken that will determine the specific action to be taken in response to the hazard witnessed at work.

Perception ⮕ Processing ⮕ Action or response

Some situations involve an automatic response, such as jumping when stepping on a nail, turning your hands away from a hot object, or closing your eyes to a flash of light.

There are also times when hazards are not so obvious and do not give rise to such an automatic response, for example when working with chemicals, when working with machinery, or even when working in an office or working from home.

Sometimes the hazards are more invisible and difficult to perceive.

When processing the information that comes to the senses in a hazardous situation, the person may be too optimistic, feeling the so-called ‘illusion of invulnerability’ and processing the information in a biased way through ‘illusory optimism’.

Reflecting on this, it would be common to think that someone who does not see themselves as vulnerable to risk will most likely not take preventive measures in their actions in the face of danger.

“The perception and assessment of risk is an individual process and is therefore different for each person.”

Both internal (or personal) and external factors may be involved.

Firstly, the action taken by the individual is influenced by personal factors, i.e. factors within the worker:

- Beliefs, attitudes, and habitual behaviour towards risk, specifically risk at work.

- Motivation to follow safety rules, depending on whether or not they are important to the person and if there is any benefit in following them.

- Age. In general, young people see less risk in hazardous situations.

- Training in occupational risk prevention, a factor that may go hand in hand with age: the older the person, the more knowledge he/she has and the more training he/she has attended on occupational risk prevention.

- Work experience or general experience. The person may have had an accident at work, may have witnessed it in their colleagues or may have had a known experience from friends or relatives.

Secondly, factors external to the worker also play a role in the individual's response to danger:

- Social factor: ‘What do others expect from me?’.

This factor includes how the safety culture is promoted in the company, what is the usual reaction of other workers to danger and what are the consequences of not acting appropriately in the face of an occupational hazard.

- Environmental factors and protection specifications (individual or collective).

The temperature of the workplace, noise or the comfort of personal protective equipment (PPE), among others, also have an influence.

Poor work organisation can lead to the need to perform tasks more quickly to meet deadlines. In this case, haste will harm safety at work, as protection and safe behaviour are often given less importance than the completion of work within the expected time.

Accidents at work can have multiple causes (human, and environmental,), but human causes are the most prominent in occupational accident statistics.

Usually, the most important factors are motivation in occupational risk prevention, training in occupational risks, organisational factors, and social factor.

Sometimes it happens that the workers themselves completely shift the responsibility for occupational hazards onto the company.

Of course, the company is responsible for protecting workers, but it is also the duty and obligation of workers to protect themselves by using the equipment provided to them and by contributing to keeping their working conditions safe.

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