Cyprus Mail 11 August 2020 - by Gina Agapiou
Cyprus businesses can now get a free coronavirus risk assessment online, regardless of the size of their company.
The Cyprus Employers’ Federation (Oev) on Monday called on all its members to utilise the Online interactive Risk Assessment (OiRA), which provides a step by step approach to coronavirus risk assessment. This is especially crucial to those providing services to the public.
“Risk assessment is the most important obligation of every organisation,” Oev said.
The Covid-19 workplace risk assessment portal was launched on June 26 by the Labour Inspection Ministry in collaboration with the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) “to provide technical guidance and to ensure the compliance of companies and organisations with the national legislation” Oev explained in a written announcement on Monday. https://oiraproject.eu/oira-tools/eu/covid-19/covid-19/@@login?came_from=https%3A%2F%2Foiraproject.eu%2Foira-tools%2Feu%2Fcovid-19%2Fcovid-19
The interactive portal is available to businesses of all sectors for free, requiring only a brief registration with a valid e-mail and password. Then, companies respond to a list of Yes or No questions, (or “does not apply”) and they automatically receive a list of guidelines, with steps they must follow to prevent the spread of coronavirus in their business.
“OiRA COVID-19, can be part of the revised risk assessment and consequently the Risk Management System, of every organization and company in Cyprus regardless of economic activity and size, proposing measures to protect and prevent the risks arising from Cocid-19” Oev’s announcement added.
To prepare the risk assessment for companies and self-employed persons, the web portal follows five steps.
- Locating all sources of danger (dangerous situations) in each workplace where activities are carried out.
- Identify the high-risk groups and the ways that those people are at risk of injury or damage to their health. The catalogue of the risks can be distributed among the workers as informative material.
- Automatic risk assessment and decision-making on the effectiveness of existing protection and prevention measures. Risks are prioritised if it is not possible to eliminate all risks in the workplace.
- Take additional required measures, based on the priorities and following a timetable of actions.
- Reassessment of risks in the workplace, at regular intervals or whenever necessary.
“It is important for employees to follow the Action Plan and implement the measures to ensure the safety of their staff” according to QiRA website.
The OiRA sectoral tools were initially created by EU-OSHA to enable micro and small enterprises to carry out sectoral risk assessments at zero cost. All the tools are free to download and can be easily accessed.
The portal provides an overview of all the risks and the preventive and protective measures to be implemented as well as a document recording the results of the risk assessment that can be downloaded, edited and printed.
