Identifying hazards in the workplace involves finding things and situations that could
potentially cause harm to people. Hazards generally arise from the following aspects of work
and their interaction:
physical work environment
equipment, materials and substances used
work tasks and how they are performed
work design and management
Table 1 below lists some common types of workplace hazards. Some hazards are part of
the work process, such as mechanical hazards, noise or toxic properties of substances.
Other hazards result from equipment or machine failures and misuse, chemical spills and
structural failures.
A piece of plant, substance or a work process may have many different hazards. Each of
these hazards needs to be identified. For example, a production line may have dangerous
moving parts, noise, hazards associated with manual tasks and psychological hazards due
to the pace of work