Your company installs central heating boilers, provides health services, helps elderly people with home care, builds or renovates houses, roasts coffee, trades in submersible pumps, or whatever. But what does your organization have to do with an expedition to Mount Everest? Well, more than you think.
This is a story about dangers and risks. The dangers of the company and risks for the entrepreneur and his employees and how you could deal with those risks responsibly.
First, Mount Everest. At 8848 meters, the highest mountain in the world, where hundreds of unfortunate climbers have already been left behind. That sounds pretty scary, but how dangerous is that mountain really?
The answer depends on your perspective. If you stay down in the valley and look at Everest from a safe distance, it is mainly a beautiful mountain but not a dangerous mountain. Are you on top of it, exhausted, you can barely breathe and do you have to descend to camp 4 in a rising storm at the end of the day? Then you are severely confronted with the dangers of the mountain. There is nothing you can do about those dangers. These dangers are inherent to your company. You wanted to stand on top of that mountain and in pursuit of that goal, you sought out the dangers of the mountain.
But danger and risk are two different things. Risk is the chance that a danger will harm you. If you are not dressed enough, you will almost certainly freeze. If you are not insured, there is a chance that you will fall. If you haven't taken the time to get used to the lack of oxygen, you won't even get close to the top.
Are you already beginning to see the agreement with your company or company? Every company sets goals for itself and needs to get moving. This movement inevitably means that you are confronted with dangers. To reduce the chance that these dangers will harm you and your employees or colleagues, you need to identify and evaluate your risks. If a risk is too great, you must take measures to reduce (control or mitigate) that risk to an acceptable level.
A good risk assessment is the basis of a successful company. If you know your risks, you can take effective control measures. Your risk of freezing is almost 100% if you climb Mount Everest wearing bad clothes. The control measure is to buy the very best specialized clothing you can buy. The risk of freezing thus falls to 15%, for example, and may therefore have become acceptable.
Serious risk inventory and evaluation (RI&E) is best organized with a good quality management and risk management system. In ISO2HANDLE, you'll find everything you need to safely reach the top with your company, company or organization. It doesn't matter if you are a healthcare organization, a coffee roaster or an installation company. You run risks and you owe it to yourself and your employees or colleagues to deal with them responsibly.
Want to know how this works on the ISO2HANDLE platform? Feel free to request an online demo and then try it temporarily free of charge. There is no risk, right?
