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Nearly 25 years after the enactment of Law No. 91-1414 of December 31, 1991, which aimed to promote occupational risk prevention and transposed European Directive 89/391/EEC, where do companies stand in terms ofoccupational risk assessment ?
Has risk assessment become the cornerstone and starting point for prevention initiatives, as the European Commission intended?
How are emerging risks being addressed in our constantly evolving companies?
Below is a brief overview of the context and challenges surrounding occupational risk assessment. We will then provide answers to these three questions.
In France, Law No. 91-1414 of December 31, 1991 (Article L. 4121-3 of the Labor Code) required every employer to conduct an assessment of the occupational risks to which their employees are exposed. This obligation was formalized in 2001 by Decree No. 2001-1016 of November 5, 2001 (Article R. 4121-1 of the Labor Code), which mandated the documentation of these assessment results in a Single Document (DU).
Since then, every establishment, regardless of its sector or size, must assess its risks and create a Single Document. It must be updated whenever significant changes occur that affect health, safety, or working conditions, and at a minimum, it must be reviewed annually.
Companies with fewer than 11 employees may, under certain conditions, be exempt from this annual update requirement.
Example: assessment matrix
The legislator does not mandate a specific method for conducting anoccupational risk assessment. Generally, these assessment processes are structured around three phases:
- Establishing a working group and identifying work units
- Identifying hazards and analyzing risks
- Occupational risk assessment
Current status
It is clear that the situation in France differs significantly between the public and private sectors. According to a recent study by the Ministry of Labor, 93% of private-sector companies with more than 250 employees have completed a Single Document. This figure drops to 75% in the hospital sector and 33% in local government.
Regarding SMEs, a study commissioned by the INRS, the findings of which were made public in 2015, indicated that 90% of SMEs with more than 10 employees had begun developing a Single Document (Document Unique), compared to 46% for micro-enterprises (fewer than 10 employees). Even more concerning, for more than a third of SMEs, no recent update—meaning within the last year—had been carried out on their document.
The second European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (2014-2015) shows that 76% of companies across the 28 European Union countries have conducted a professional risk assessment.
These statistics should be viewed with caution. They only provide a quantitative, rather than qualitative, indication of the professional risk assessments conducted. Indeed, among the main problems with the risk assessments formalized today, we observe the following for a significant number of companies:
- An incomplete inventory of risks
- An irrelevant and subjective prioritization
- A non-representative breakdown of work units
- A partial update, particularly following an accident
- An insufficient assessment of risks likely to cause MSDs
Risk assessment is not an end in itself. It must serve as the starting point for a genuine prevention strategy. This begins with the question: "Is it possible to eliminate this risk?" If the answer is no, it is necessary to implement technical and organizational actions, and to influence behaviors, to prevent the risk.
Here again, the situation is mixed. Approximately one-quarter of companies report that they have not developed an action plan following their risk assessments. Nevertheless, it should be noted that all these studies (Ministry of Labor, INRS, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work) highlight a constant improvement over several years, even for SMEs. There is a steady increase in the percentage of companies developing and maintaining professional risk assessments and implementing prevention strategies.
Professional risk assessment and prevention strategies
There is sometimes confusion between the terms danger, exposure, risk, and harm. Despite this, French companies, particularly those with more than 50 employees, have truly integrated risk assessment into their prevention approach.
Indeed, while this work may seem long and tedious, it ultimately provides a clear and objective snapshot of the risks employees face.
It is important that this assessment be conducted by a multidisciplinary team. The goal is to identify hazards exhaustively, analyze risks accurately, and prioritize them appropriately.
The ILO-OSH 2001 / OHSAS 18001 standards (soon to be ISO 45001) place professional risk assessment at the heart of occupational health and safety management systems. As such, these frameworks encourage companies to rely on the results of their risk assessments. This allows them to develop a Safety Policy, define objectives, and build action plans.
REMINDER:
- A danger is the intrinsic property of a product, piece of equipment, or situation that is capable of causing harm to an employee's mental or physical integrity.
- Risk / Harm. Risk is the possibility of an encounter between a person and a danger to which they are exposed. Harm is an unwanted event resulting from that risk.
After imposing a general safety obligation on every company, Article L.4121-2 of the Labor Code places risk assessment at the heart of the prevention system.
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Article L.4121-2
The employer shall implement the measures provided for in Article L.4121-1* based on the following general principles of prevention:
- 1- Avoid risks;
- 2- Evaluate risks that cannot be avoided;
- 3- Combat risks at the source;
- ...
* Art L.4121-1: The employer shall take the necessary measures to ensure the safety and protect the physical and mental health of workers.
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The Labor Code also provides for dedicated and specific assessments for certain risks (chemical risks, biological risks, mechanical vibrations, etc.), with reference values for some of these risks.
The main prevention actions initiated following the occupational risk assessment are as follows:
- Modification of workstations (layout)
- Revision of work organization and exposure times (development of versatility)
- Improvement of medical monitoring
- Implementation of collective and individual protective equipment
- Revision or definition of roles and responsibilities and development of job descriptions
- Training delivery
- On-site audits
- Implementation of performance indicators
Looking ahead
Companies are facing significant human, social, and financial challenges. The number of recognized occupational diseases is on the rise. In this context, they must, among other things, prevent risks to their employees.
Later retirement ages, sometimes very intense work paces, and diverse career paths are all key factors to consider in the field of prevention.
New risks have emerged, or at the very least, have begun to be truly addressed in recent years, among them psychosocial risks (PSR). Today, they represent a real challenge for companies. How can they be assessed objectively? How can they be prevented? And more generally, how can a model be built within the company to foster well-being at work?
Today, assessing these new risks is essential. However, the methodology must be adapted to specifically evaluate PSR or the factors likely to cause them (for example, traditional scoring criteria such as severity and frequency of exposure are not relevant in this case).
Through pragmatic assessment approaches, it is reasonable to believe that other risks that are currently poorly understood or little known (risks related to electromagnetic fields, risks related to nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, etc.) can be assessed more precisely. They can then be subject to appropriate preventive measures once scientific and medical data and studies have further advanced.
Reminder: in the meantime, it is advisable to address them using the data currently at your disposal, if necessary.
Finally, every company must maintain momentum over time. It must allocate resources to update its occupational risk assessment and use these results to build an effective and sustainable prevention strategy.