4 minute read
Is Your Swim School at Risk?
IS YOUR SWIM BY ROSS SMITH ERR CONTENT PARTNER WITH WORLD WIDE SWIM SCHOOL SCHOOL AT RISK?
To truly know if your Swim School is at risk, you first must understand a little about measuring risks.
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By building a metric around a potential hazard, this can help you better plan and mitigate that risk. The metric to ascertain the severity of the risk is normally based on likelihood and consequence, a table or risk matrix is commonly used to measure the likelihood and consequence of the risk occurring.
LET’S LOOK AT A SIMPLE SCENARIO TO MEASURE RISK, USING A BASIC RISK MATRIX EXAMPLE.
You are about to cross a road, on that road there is only bicycles that travel in one direction at a frequency of about every five minutes. So, the likelihood of being hit by one of the bicycles is low and the consequence if you were hit by a bicycle is reasonably low. Therefore, if the likelihood is low and the consequence is low, the risk associated with this activity is overall low.
However, if we were to increase the frequency of the bicycles traveling along that road to every minute the likelihood of being hit is high, but once again the consequence of being hit and severely injured is still low, in this risk associated with this activity is overall medium.
NOW LET’S CHANGE THE HAZARD AND DO A RISK ASSESSMENT WITH THIS SCENARIO.
You are about to cross a road that is frequented by trucks, which pass every five minutes. You still have plenty of time to cross this road, the likelihood of being hit by a truck remains low, however, the consequence of being hit by a truck and being severely injured or worse is high. Therefore, the risk associated with crossing this road is overall medium.
What if we increased the frequency of the trucks traveling along the road to every few seconds, you probably wouldn’t even attempt to cross this road. So, if we look at the metric, the likelihood of being hit by a truck now increases to high, and the consequence of severe injury or fatality is also high, the risk associated with this activity is overall high.
THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A BASIC RISK MATRIX YOU CAN USE TO ASSESS RISKS AT YOUR SWIM SCHOOL.
RISK MATRIX
LIKELIHOOD VERY LIKELY LIKELY UNLIKELY HIGHLY UNLIKELY
CONSEQUENCES FATALITY HIGH HIGH HIGH MEDIUM
MAJOR INJURIES
MINOR INJURIES
NEGLIGIBLE INJURIES HIGH HIGH MEDIUM MEDIUM
HIGH MEDIUM MEDIUM LOW
MEDIUM MEDIUM LOW LOW
THE IMPORTANCE OF A POSITIVE RISK CULTURE
Hazard identification and risk assessment within your Swim School is the responsibility of all staff, managers, and owners. The first step is to develop a positive risk culture within your business.
A positive risk culture is one where staff at every level appropriately manage risk as an intrinsic part of their day-to-day work.
Every organizations culture is complex and will be driven by a number of factors. However, to protect your Swim Schools staff, customers, and reputation a positive risk culture starts from the induction of new staff and then flows down to all staff from management.
RISK ASSESSMENTS CAN BE BROKEN DOWN INTO TWO MAIN CATEGORIES:
• Systematic risk assessment • Dynamic risk assessment
A systematic risk assessment is the development of policies, procedures and emergency planning outlining the potential risks associated with your swim school (use a risk matrix to measure this).
For example, you have assessed the likelihood and consequence of someone slipping over on the pool deck, so you have developed a no running policy at your Swim School and mitigated the risk by signage and non-slip surfaces. To ensure your customers are safe from slipping your staff have a directive to enforce the no running policy and the policy is communicated to customers by staff. Policies and procedures are important to have in place, the challenge is to guarantee all staff, including new staff, fully understand the written policy and its intended outcomes.
A dynamic risk assessment is what all staff, managers and owners carry out daily, and it is enormously important. Relying on just a written policy is an extremely naive way to manage risk, something that was safe yesterday may not be safe today.
Every member of your Swim School team should practice dynamic risk assessments, check, plan, look and observe. If the situation has changed, something does not look right or out of place or there is a clear and present danger, the quick actions of your staff to mitigate or control that risk can make the difference between life and death.
FINAL WORD
World Wide Swim School in partnership with Emergency Risk Ready can help mitigate your risks. From years of expertise in the Swim School industry we have developed eLearning packages for staff induction and ongoing staff training that addresses multiple risks. Select from our range of video-based education that focus on, Medical, Non-Medical and Pool Plant Emergencies. Get more information here https://worldwideswimschool.com/emergency-risk-training/
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