Working at heights is one of the most critical risks faced across many industries. Whether it involves accessing rooftops, using elevated work platforms (EWPs), performing maintenance on structures, or working near unprotected edges, the potential for severe incidents such as falls is significant. Effective management of working at heights risks requires a structured approach to identify hazards, implement robust controls, and ensure ongoing verification of their effectiveness.
Industries and Work Activities Involving Heights
Working at heights is a common activity across various industries, each with unique challenges and risk factors. These include:
Construction
Performing tasks on scaffolding, ladders, or rooftops.
Installing or repairing structural components such as beams or cladding.
Utilities and Energy
Maintenance of powerlines, wind turbines, or elevated infrastructure.
Accessing telecommunications towers for repairs or upgrades.
Mining
Performing maintenance on elevated machinery or conveyor systems.
Working on infrastructure such as crushers, silos, or lighting installations.
Logistics and Warehousing
Accessing goods stored at height.
Loading and unloading freight on elevated platforms.
Agriculture
Harvesting from tall crops or trees.
Conducting maintenance on silos, barns, or other elevated structures.
Emergency Services
Firefighters using ladders or aerial platforms.
Rescue operations in tall buildings or challenging terrains.
Other Sectors
Entertainment and events: Rigging equipment for concerts or performances.
Facilities management: Window cleaning or roof maintenance.
Potential Incidents and Scenarios
Understanding the potential incidents related to working at heights is essential for effective critical risk management. These can be broadly categorised into the following scenarios:
Falls from Height
Workers falling from scaffolding, rooftops, or ladders.
Falling through unprotected or fragile surfaces, such as skylights.
Dropped Objects
Tools, materials, or equipment falling from height, posing a risk to people or equipment below.
Slips and Missteps
Workers losing balance on narrow walkways or unstable surfaces.
Equipment Failure
Harnesses, anchor points, or scaffolding components failing due to improper use or maintenance.
Environmental Factors
Wind, rain, or icy surfaces increasing the likelihood of slips or instability.
Common Contributing Dynamics
Poor access or egress to elevated areas.
Inadequate planning or risk assessments before work begins.
Operators not being fit for work (e.g., fatigue or impairment).
Using inappropriate equipment for the task, such as a ladder instead of an EWP.
Establishing Your Context for Critical Risk Management
To effectively manage working at heights risks, it’s essential to establish your context for critical risk management. This includes determining the scope and focus of your efforts:
Scope: Are you managing all tasks at height across all worksites, or prioritising high-risk activities?
Activities: Are you focusing on routine maintenance, emergency repairs, or specific project-based work?
Equipment Types: Are you managing fixed scaffolding, portable ladders, or advanced equipment like EWPs?
Clearly defining your context helps streamline efforts, allocate resources effectively, and ensure targeted risk management.
Identifying Relevant Scenarios
The next step in managing working at heights critical risks is to identify the specific scenarios relevant to your context. This involves understanding the activities, environments, and equipment that contribute to the risks of working at heights. By defining these scenarios, organisations can develop a targeted and effective approach to manage their risks.
High-Risk Activities
Some tasks inherently involve greater exposure to the risks of working at heights, including:
Rooftop Work: Maintenance, repairs, or inspections on roofs, especially near unprotected edges or fragile surfaces like skylights.
Scaffolding and Ladder Use: Temporary access solutions often required in construction, painting, or maintenance tasks.
Operating Elevated Work Platforms (EWPs): Tasks involving equipment such as boom lifts or scissor lifts.
Tower or Structure Work: Maintenance or installation on towers, wind turbines, or similar structures.
High-Exposure Areas
Certain environments amplify the risks associated with working at heights, such as:
High-Traffic Worksites: Construction or industrial sites where multiple activities occur simultaneously, increasing the likelihood of incidents.
Confined or Congested Spaces: Areas where access is restricted, making safe movement more challenging.
Remote Locations: Sites far from emergency services, where immediate medical assistance may not be available.
Equipment and Surface Considerations
The type and condition of equipment and surfaces can significantly influence the risks:
Ladders and Scaffolding: Poorly maintained or improperly secured equipment increases the likelihood of falls.
Fragile Surfaces: Skylights, roofing panels, or deteriorated structures may collapse under weight.
EWPs: Incorrect operation or malfunction can lead to equipment tip-overs or falls.
Environmental Factors
The surrounding environment can introduce additional challenges, such as:
Adverse Weather Conditions: Wind, rain, or icy surfaces can create slip hazards or reduce stability.
Poor Lighting: Low visibility increases the likelihood of missteps or equipment misuse.
Unsecured Work Areas: Tools or materials left unsecured may create hazards for both workers at height and those below.
By identifying these scenarios and their unique risks, organisations can establish a detailed understanding of the hazards specific to their working at heights activities. This enables more effective prioritisation of controls, ensuring that the most critical risks are addressed first.
Constructing Your Critical Risk Bowtie Analysis
A Critical Risk Bowtie Analysis is a structured and visual tool to map out the pathways leading to incidents involving working at heights and identify the controls needed to prevent or mitigate those incidents.
Step 1: Define Your Unwanted Event - Centre of Bowtie
The first step is to identify your unwanted event, which is the critical scenario or grouping you aim to manage, such as a worker falling from height or a dropped object striking someone below. This event represents the central focus of your analysis—the point where risk must be prevented or mitigated. Select an unwanted event that could lead to the highest consequence outcomes in your context.
For example, you may choose to prioritise high-risk scenarios first and address lower-priority areas in subsequent analyses.
Step 2: Identify Causes (Threats) - Left-Hand-Side of Bowtie
Once your unwanted event is established, the next step is to identify the causes or threats that could lead to it.
These causes must be likely and direct pathways to the event.
Avoid being too broad or generic, as this can dilute the analysis and lead to ineffective control identification.
Examples include:
Unsecured edges or unprotected openings.
Improper use of ladders or equipment.
Poorly maintained fall protection systems.
By focusing on specific causes, you ensure that your controls are tailored and relevant to managing the risk.
Step 3: Identify Consequences (Impacts) - Righ-Hand-Side of Bowtie
Next, identify the consequences or impacts that could result from the unwanted event occurring.
Consequences must be direct outcomes of the event.
These help you understand what’s at stake and guide the development of appropriate mitigating measures.
Examples include:
Serious injury or fatality to the worker.
Injury to people below due to falling tools or materials.
Equipment or property damage from dropped objects.
Like causes, keeping consequences specific ensures the analysis remains focused and actionable.
Step 4: Map Preventing and Mitigating Controls
Once you have identified causes and consequences, it’s time to map out controls. Controls are the measures implemented to either prevent the unwanted event from occurring or reduce its impact if it does. Start with identifying what controls you already have in place managing the critical risk, then you can start to identify gaps and opportunities to strengthen your causal pathway with proposed or new controls. Controls are acts, objects or technical systems. Try to call out the actual control, not the document that manages the control.
Preventing Controls
These controls address the causes (threats) on the left side of the bowtie.
Their purpose is to stop the unwanted event from happening.
Think of them as barriers that block or interrupt the progression from a cause to the unwanted event.
Examples include:
Edge Protection Systems: Guardrails or barriers to prevent falls.
Fall Protection Equipment: Harnesses, lanyards, and anchor points.
Equipment Inspections: Regular checks to ensure the safety of ladders, scaffolding, or EWPs.
Mitigating Controls
These controls address the consequences (impacts) on the right side of the bowtie.
Their purpose is to reduce the severity or extent of the impacts if the unwanted event occurs.
They act as safety nets that limit harm, damage, or loss.
Examples include:
Emergency Response Plans: Quick access to medical care or rescue equipment.
Dropped Object Protection Systems: Nets or exclusion zones to protect workers below.
First Aid Training: Workers equipped to respond to injuries on-site.
By clearly distinguishing preventing and mitigating controls, the bowtie ensures you’re addressing both the likelihood and the consequences of the event.
Why Focus and Specificity Matter
The success of a bowtie analysis hinges on its ability to identify specific controls that effectively manage risks. If the causes or consequences are too broad, you risk overlooking critical controls or diluting their effectiveness. A focused analysis ensures that every identified control is targeted, actionable, and essential.
By following these steps, you can construct a comprehensive bowtie analysis that visualises your critical risks and the pathways to managing them.
Identifying Critical Controls
Critical controls are the cornerstone of managing risks in a bowtie analysis. These are the controls that, if absent, ineffective, or failed, would have a significant impact on the likelihood of an unwanted event occurring or on the severity of its consequences. Proper identification and selection of critical controls ensure that resources are focused on the most important barriers to risk.
Preventing Critical Controls
Preventing critical controls are focused on the causal pathways leading to the unwanted event. These controls act as barriers to stop the event from occurring.
What to Ask:
Would the absence or failure of this control significantly increase the likelihood of the unwanted event?
Is this control essential to interrupting the causal pathway?
By identifying and implementing preventing critical controls, you can drastically reduce the probability of the unwanted event occurring.
Mitigating Critical Controls
Mitigating critical controls are focused on the consequences of the unwanted event. These controls do not stop the event from occurring but instead limit its severity or extent.
What to Ask:
Would the absence or failure of this control result in the highest potential consequence?
Is this control critical to reducing harm, damage, or loss if the unwanted event occurs?
Mitigating critical controls ensure that even if the event occurs, the outcomes are managed to minimise harm.
Key Considerations for Identifying Critical Controls
Critical controls must be effective, measurable, and reliable to ensure they perform as intended.
Avoid overloading the analysis with non-critical controls. Focus only on those that significantly influence the risk pathways or outcomes.
By selecting critical controls with this structured approach, you create a robust system that prioritises the most impactful barriers to risk.
Critical Control Management
Critical control management is an essential component of effective risk management. It ensures that the most important controls in your system are clearly understood, properly implemented, and rigorously maintained to prevent or mitigate high-consequence events. This process involves understanding each critical control’s requirements, verifying their effectiveness, and managing their performance over time.
Critical Control Performance Requirements
To effectively manage critical controls, it is crucial to understand their performance requirements. This involves developing a Critical Control Performance Standard that clearly defines the expectations and parameters for each control. The performance standard should include the following key elements:
Objectives of the Critical Control
The purpose of the control, such as preventing falls or securing tools.
Performance Requirements
Define how the control must perform to meet its objectives. This includes measurable criteria such as load limits for scaffolding.
Critical Operating Parameters
Identify operational thresholds or conditions under which the control must remain effective.
Failure Modes
Outline potential mechanisms of failure and how they might occur (e.g., wear and tear, human error, environmental factors).
Training Requirements
Specify the knowledge and skills required for personnel to operate, inspect, and maintain the critical control effectively.
Maintenance and Inspection Requirements
Detail the frequency and type of maintenance activities, as well as inspection protocols to ensure ongoing functionality.
Critical Control Verification (CCV) Process
The Critical Control Verification (CCV) process is vital for ensuring that critical controls are implemented, effective, and not at risk of failure. This process typically involves three primary activities:
Verifying Critical Controls Are in Place
In-Field Observations: Confirm that critical controls have been physically implemented in the workplace. For example, check that edge protection, heights PPE is being worn, or procedures are present and accessible.
Verifying Critical Controls Are Effective
In-Field Testing: Test the functionality of critical controls to ensure they perform as intended. For example, test inertia reels to confirm their effectiveness under operating conditions.
Verifying Critical Controls Are Not at Risk of Failure
Maintenance Programs: Ensure regular servicing, repairs, and inspections are conducted to prevent degradation or failure.
Audits and Certifications: Use independent or internal audits to confirm compliance with performance standards and identify potential risks.
Detecting Failure Mechanisms: Monitor and address early signs of failure, such as wear and tear, system alerts, or operational deviations.
Defining Verification Frequency
The frequency of verification activities should be based on the level of exposure and the number of areas where the critical control is implemented. Consider the following factors:
High-Exposure Areas
For controls in high-risk or high-frequency areas (e.g., erecting or dismantling scaffold), verification should occur more frequently to account for the increased likelihood of failure or incident.
Multiple Implementation Sites
When a control is implemented across numerous locations (e.g., multiple heights activities or scaffolds on a construction site), verification activities should be scaled to ensure all instances are regularly checked.
Risk-Based Scheduling
Use the severity of potential consequences and historical performance data to determine appropriate intervals for verification (e.g., daily, weekly, or monthly checks).
Why Critical Control Management Matters
By systematically managing critical controls, organisations can ensure that these essential barriers remain functional, reliable, and aligned with their intended objectives. Performance standards provide a clear understanding of how controls should operate, while verification processes offer confidence that controls are effective and ready to respond when needed.
This structured approach ensures that risks are not only managed but also proactively mitigated, contributing to a safer and more resilient workplace.
Conclusion: Managing the Critical Risk of Working at Heights
Working at heights remains one of the most significant risks across industries. The potential for severe consequences—ranging from fatalities to operational disruptions—makes it imperative to manage this risk with precision and diligence. By adopting tools like bowtie analysis, implementing robust critical control management practices, and verifying the effectiveness of controls, organisations can significantly reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents.
To support you in managing this critical risk, we offer the Working at Heights Critical Risk Package, a comprehensive solution tailored to your industry and specific working at heights risks.
Who We Work With
We have extensive experience developing successful critical risk management and critical control programs for a diverse range of clients, including:
Glencore
BHP
Ampol Australia
Local councils
Leading construction companies
Manufacturing companies
NDIS providers
Charities and not-for-profits
Our expertise spans industries and sectors, allowing us to tailor solutions to meet the unique challenges faced by our clients. Let us bring this experience to your organisation and help you achieve effective and sustainable risk management outcomes.
What’s Included:
Tailored Approach: A package customised to your industry and working at heights critical risks.
Comprehensive Bowtie Analysis: A working at heights critical risk bowtie analysis to identify and manage causes, consequences, and controls.
Critical Control Identification and Selection: Structured tools to pinpoint critical controls.
Critical Control Performance Standard Document Suite: Define objectives, performance requirements, operating parameters, and training needs for each critical control.
Critical Control Verification Document Suite: Ensure critical controls are effective and not at risk of failure through field observations and testing tools.
Consultation and Implementation Guide: Guidance to implement and integrate the package effectively.
Worker Toolbox Talk: Equip your team with the knowledge to manage working at heights risks.
Tailored to a Single Bowtie Analysis
This package is designed for a single bowtie analysis, focusing on a well-defined grouping of scenarios that form an unwanted event. Selecting an appropriate grouping ensures the analysis is precise, actionable, and effective in managing your critical risks.
By leveraging this comprehensive package, you can streamline your risk management process, ensuring critical controls are in place, effective, and verifiable. Click below to take the first step in managing your working at heights critical risks confidently and effectively.
You will be asked in the checkout to provide information on your industry and the activities you'd like included in the working at heights critical risk package.
Further customisations will be required including context and scenarios. This package will be delivered via email within 5 business days.
Principal Hazard Management Plan (PHMP) Working at Heights
The Principal Hazard Management Plan (PHMP) is a vital document required by many industries to address high-consequence risks effectively. This add-on complements our Critical Risk Packages by providing a comprehensive framework tailored to your specific industry and operations.
What Is a Principal Hazard Management Plan (PHMP)?
A PHMP is a high-level strategic document that:
Identifies specific principal hazards in your operations (e.g., working at heights, confined spaces, or mobile equipment interactions).
Outlines your organisation's approach to managing these hazards, ensuring compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements.
Provides a clear structure for hazard assessment, risk controls, and ongoing monitoring.
What’s Included in the PHMP Add-On?
When you add the PHMP to your Critical Risk Package, you’ll receive:
Tailored Principal Hazard Management Plan:
A detailed plan aligned with your industry and operational requirements.
Integration of specific risks and controls identified in your Critical Risk Package.
Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment:
Comprehensive identification of principal hazards and associated risks.
Strategies to mitigate risks effectively and sustainably.
Compliance Framework:
Alignment with relevant industry legislation, standards, and codes of practice.
Monitoring and Review Framework:
Procedures for continuous improvement, audits, and periodic reviews.
Actionable Strategies:
Specific control measures, implementation steps, and roles/responsibilities.
Why Add a PHMP to Your Package?
Regulatory Compliance: Ensure your organisation meets all legislative requirements for managing principal hazards.
Customised Solutions: Receive a plan tailored to your operations, ensuring relevance and practicality.
Enhanced Risk Management: Build a robust framework to manage high-consequence risks effectively.
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