Executive Summary

The effect of risk in any society, organization, business venture or endeavour had been, and now of great importance. It requires an adequate attention because of its inherent dangers. It can lead to loss of lives and/or properties, facilities, infrastructural damages and capital loss. It is therefore vital to identify and manage errors and uncertainties, which may likely occur in our business environment, especially when capitally intensive, and develop models on how to address them whenever they arise.

Discussion
Risk management is a valuable process for preserving resources. It is both an art and a science, which requires an engineering approach in dealing with the uncertainties, errors and inherent hazards. The American Marines Risk Management approach is a typical one, which reduces risk by avoiding, controlling, or eliminating hazards (ORM 1-0, 2002). This is possible through identification of risk factor(s), reason for their occurrence, where they take place, whose responsibilities, what are the resources required and how is it supposed to be handled. When all these have been identified, it should be noted that, there is no end line to risk management. Risk factors are in every environment; our place of abode and our offices, may be onshore or offshore. Lives of personnel, companys properties and resources could be at risk as a result of the following: forgetting to turn off the gas and close the blowout valves in an oil field, faulty smoke detectors, expired fire extinguishers, lack of experienced workforce, environmental condition or force majeure, etc. Everybody should be aware that things can go wrong at any time in their environment and also be abreast of available emergency measure to arrest or evacuate personnel to available muster point. According to HSE (2007a), the major reasons for failures or risk occurrence are: Lack of organisational learning; lack of awareness in relation to major accidents prevention; and, inadequacies in administration and workforce competencies. This may be due to high employees turnover based on some factors external to the companys operational environment or largely due to it. This can be in form of personnel safety in war prone zone like Libya, extreme weather condition in Russia and inadequate knowledge management. After identifying the risk factors and the conditions aiding their occurrence, it had been observed and proven that there should be a measure to curtail them. In addressing this, the following were suggested: To design checklists to ensure adequate measure to forestall accidents Simplify the risk management concept which aids employees involvement Engage employees in brainstorming session to aid awareness Audit and review risk management approaches in place Conduct interviews with employees at certain intervals of time to aid compliance

To adequately ensure final implementation of the suggested approaches, the top managements approval must be sought and granted. Because business safety or risk management requires financial support to implement, like employee training, installation of fire drill equipment and fire extinguisher, control employee turnover rates to the minimum, build a friendly job environment and make sure everybody is involved by putting a sanction in place.

Conclusion
Risk management is a method of identifying, assessing, and minimizing uncertainties resulting from operational factors and making decisions which stabilize hazard costs with operation benefits. Hence, management of uncertainties through management of errors and prevention of accidents by maintenance of equipment and training of workforce will help eradicate risk to the lowest minimum. For failure to efficiently control the risk may make an operation too expensivepolitically, economically, and in terms of workforce management.

Recommendation
To effectively manage risk, an informed decision needs to be adequately taken at the right time. This is to forestall damages that its impact may likely have on the business as a whole. To address this, a set of rules must be in place. This must be made simple and easily implemented across board: at the managerial level and operational position. Based on this, the following are recommended: Educational Approach: The training and manpower development department should organise training for every staff involved in every part of the business, inform them about the uncertainties in their environment and controls available to avoid and curtail them in case of eventuality. This should be implemented through individual and collective training that ensures performance to standard. Physical Approach: This is commonly implemented in form of barriers, preventions, or signs to notify individuals and units that a risk exists. Additionally, special regulator or oversight workforces responsible for locating specific hazards fall into this group. This should be implemented by the premises or property managers. Preventive Approach: This is a leadership responsibility in form of supervisory role. Leaders should be aware of uncertainties at all times. Complacency should not be tolerated for the fact that existing controls may have become ineffective in controlling hazards in a spontaneous situation. Effort must be put into reviewing the available equipment and identified fault in the system. Quarterly review is recommended to forestall oversight. Team Leads, Supervisors and heads of dept or units are responsible for making this realisable.

Infrastructural approach: The last approach is system maintenance. All the system and equipment aiding the prevention of hazards should be adequately maintained, as recommended by the professionals. These include protective clothing, equipment, and security and safety devices. Those that require overhauling should be done without delay. Because a stitch in time saves nine. This is a top functionary role, which should be directly monitored under the management auspices. Top management must ensure that they receive feedback.

In support of the above listed, it should be noted that, there is no single approach to solving any problem. Risk assessment should be an integral part of the business activities.

References
HEALTH SAFETY AND EXECUTIVE (HSE), (2007a). Development of a working model of how human factors, safety management systems and wider organisational issues fit together, Prepared by White Queen Safety Strategies & Environmental Resources Management. Research Report RR 543 [online]. Available from: http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr543.pdf [accessed on 30 September 2011]. ORM 1-0 (2002) Operational Risk Management, prepared by Headquarters Marine Corps. Washington, DC [online]. Available from: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/orm.pdf [8 October 2011].

Bibliography
HEALTH SAFETY AND EXECUTIVE (HSE), 2008. Optimising hazard management by workforce engagement and supervision [online]. Prepared by Risk Support Limited for the Health and Safety Executive. Available from: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg163.pdf [Accessed 30 September 2011] HEALTH SAFETY AND EXECUTIVE (HSE), 2011. Five Steps to Risk Assessment. Published by HSE [online]. Available from: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg163.pdf [accessed on 29 September 2011].