The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) has marked 15 years since it launched OiRA, an online platform designed to help micro and small businesses carry out workplace risk assessments.
Risk assessments are a way for employers to identify hazards at work, assess who could be harmed and decide how to reduce the risks. Many small businesses struggle to do this because they have limited resources and lack occupational safety and health expertise, EU-OSHA said in a release.
OiRA — short for Online interactive Risk Assessment — provides free digital tools tailored to specific sectors and national contexts.
The agency said the tools are used across a wide range of workplaces, from bakeries and beauty salons to road transport companies and construction sites.
Hundreds of tools, more than 630,000 assessments started
A total of 375 OiRA tools have been released so far, with another 50 in development, EU-OSHA said.
More than 630,000 risk assessments have been initiated using the platform, it added.
The platform is supported by what EU-OSHA calls the “OiRA community”, made up of national authorities, social partners and occupational safety and health organisations that develop new tools for different sectors and countries.
EU-OSHA also published a short online tutorial showing how to use OiRA, and said it is available in several languages including Bulgarian, Dutch, French and Slovak, with more languages to follow.
