Workplace risk assessment (APV): Your pathway to a healthy working environment
What is a workplace risk assessment?
The workplace risk assessment, in Danish Arbejdspladsvurdering (APV), is tool for assessing the physical and psychosocial working environment in your workplace. Its purpose is to ensure a safe and healthy workplace.
Why do I need to fill out a workplace risk assessment?
If there are problems with the working environment at your workplace, a workplace assessment ("APV") is your opportunity to tell your workplace about the problem. That's why it's crucial that as many people as possible participate in the data collection and that you fill it out thoroughly and preferably as specifically as possible
You can also use the APV to let management know if there is something you think is going really well and that you need to continue or do even more of.
How is a workplace risk assessment carried out and what does it contain?
The health and safety organisation at the workplace is responsible for drawing up and implementing the APV.
Employees must be involved in the process of the APV. There is freedom of method as to how the company conducts their WPA, so it varies from company to company. But it can be done via a questionnaire, at a department meeting or with more dialogue-based methods.
There are no rules for which questions you need to answer in a company APV. The only requirement for a APV is that management produces a summarised, written product that is accessible to you as an employee.
What happens after I've filled out the workplace assessment?
Once the data has been collected, your employer must summarise the workplace assessment in writing.
If the APV shows that there are issues that need to be addressed in relation to the working environment at your workplace, the employer is obliged to draw up an action plan for how they will improve the conditions that affect the physical and psychological working environment. It is your right to be able to go to work without getting sick or with threats to your health and well-being.
Psychosocial working environment: Here are your rights
Physical working environment: Here are your rights
Health and safety representatives: How they can help you
What should the written summary of the workplace risk assessment contain?
The written summary of the workplace assessment must document that the company has been through four phases.
- The company has mapped the physical and psychosocial working environment.
- The company has assessed the nature, scope and possible solutions to the problems.
- The company must prepare a prioritised action plan.
- The company must follow up on the workplace assessment and make the results visible
You can find industry-specific online tools and forms that can be used to prepare the workplace assessment at Arbejdstilsynet.
Find tools for the workplace assessment at Arbejdstilsynet on AT.dk
Where can I see the findings of the workplace risk assessment?
As an employee, you have the right to access the results of previous workplace assessments.
If you're unsure where you can view the results of a APV, ask your health and safety representative.
Am I anonymous when I participate in a workplace assessment?
There is freedom of method when it comes to the workplace assessment (WPA). Therefore, your response may not be anonymous, although this is very often the case.
If you are unsure, you can ask your line manager or health and safety representative about whether your workplace assessment is anonymous.
How often do I need to complete a workplace assessment?
You and your colleagues are usually required to participate in a WPA once a year, but it should happen at least every 3 years.
How can I influence the questions in the workplace assessment?
If you want to influence the questions in the WPA at your workplace and the follow-up on the WPA, talk to your manager or your health and safety representative.