Tutorial 2: Build Your First Hazard

This tutorial gets your first real H&S record into the app. We’ll add a hazard, assess its risk, add a control, calculate the residual risk, and assign someone to keep an eye on it.

By the end you’ll know:

• Where the Hazards module lives and how it’s laid out.
• The difference between inherent and residual risk.
• How to add a control measure to a hazard.
• How to schedule the next review.

If terms like inherent, residual, or hierarchy of controls are unfamiliar, see Risk assessment in SteadyOn for background. You don’t have to read it first — this tutorial explains as it goes.

Before you start

Have a real hazard in mind from your workplace. We’ll use a slip-on- wet-floor example throughout, but you’ll learn faster with a real one.

If you haven’t done Tutorial 1 yet, do that first — you’ll need at least one site.

Step 1 — Open the Hazards list

From the sidebar, open Hazards. The list will be empty (or already populated if your org started with seed data).

Notice the layout:

• A header with a + Hazard button on the right.
• A search box and three filters — BRAG, Status, Site.
• A view toggle (Table / Card) and a chooser for which columns or card fields are visible.
• A kebab menu (⋯) with Export CSV and Import CSV.

This is the standard list-page layout. You’ll see it on every module.

Step 2 — Open the create wizard

Click + Hazard. SteadyOn opens a wizard — a multi-step form in a dialog with tabs across the top. The fields are spread across several tabs so you don’t see a wall of inputs at once.

The tabs are typically:

1. Basics — what the hazard is and where.
2. Assess — inherent risk: how likely and how severe before controls.
3. Control — what’s in place to prevent or reduce the risk; and the residual risk after those controls.
4. Assign — who’s responsible.
5. Attachments — optional photos.

You can move between tabs freely. SteadyOn highlights any tab that has unfilled required fields when you try to save.

Step 3 — Fill in the Basics tab

For our slip-on-wet-floor example:

• Title — Slip on wet floor in kitchen.
• Description — “Tiled floor in the kitchen becomes slippery after wash-down at end of shift. Multiple slips reported in 2025 during winter.”
• Site — pick the site you created in Tutorial 1.
• Location — Kitchen (a free-text sub-location within the site).
• Type — pick from the dropdown (e.g. Slip / Trip / Fall). If no value fits, leave it blank — you can add new types in Organisation Settings → Configuration → Lookups any time.
• Status — leave as the default (Open or Identified, depending on your org’s lookups).

The fields on this tab match exactly what you’ll see in the column chooser on the list page. They’re the “title-card” view of a hazard.

Step 4 — Assess the inherent risk

Switch to the Assess tab.

Inherent risk is how bad this hazard is with no controls in place. It’s a deliberately pessimistic snapshot. The point is to be honest about the underlying problem before you start patting yourself on the back for the mats you put down.

Fill in:

• Inherent likelihood — how likely is harm if there were no controls? Pick from Rare, Unlikely, Possible, Likely, or Almost certain.
• Inherent severity — how bad would the harm be? Insignificant, Minor, Moderate, Major, or Severe.

For our example, choose Likely × Moderate.

SteadyOn looks the pair up in your org’s risk matrix and shows the Inherent risk level — typically Medium, High, or Very high. Likely × Moderate maps to High in the default matrix.

The risk matrix is fully customisable. See Customise the risk matrix.

Step 5 — Add a control and assess residual risk

Switch to the Control tab.

This is where you describe what’s actually in place to reduce the likelihood or severity. The most useful framework is the hierarchy of controls — elimination, substitution, engineering, administrative, PPE, in descending order of effectiveness.

For our example:

• Control measures — “Wet-floor signage during wash-down. Anti- slip mats at kitchen entry. Wash-down rescheduled to end of shift to remove pedestrian traffic.”
• Recommended controls — leave blank for now, or write “Replace flooring with anti-slip vinyl.”

Now fill in the residual fields:

• Residual likelihood — with those controls in place, how likely is harm now? Likely → Possible.
• Residual severity — usually unchanged unless your control reduces severity directly. Leave at Moderate.

SteadyOn shows the Residual risk level — Medium. That’s a real reduction from High and tells you the controls are doing real work.

Step 6 — Assign a responsible person

Switch to the Assign tab.

• Responsible person — pick someone from the list. If you haven’t added People yet (we do that in Tutorial 5), the dropdown shows members of your org.
• Health monitoring — optional. Tick if this hazard requires ongoing health monitoring (e.g. exposure-based hazards).

Step 7 — Save and review

Click Save. The wizard closes and you land on the hazard’s detail page.

Look at the page:

• The header shows the title, site, status, BRAG, and inherent risk level.
• The tabs are the same as the wizard, plus Related and Log tabs.
• The kebab menu (⋯) at the top right has Edit, Delete, and other actions.
• The footer shows Created by [your name] on [today].

Notice the BRAG colour. With your residual risk now Medium and a review date set in the future, the hazard should be green. If it’s amber or red, see The BRAG status system for what triggered it — most likely the review date is too soon or the inherent risk is Very high.

Step 8 — Schedule the review

Hazards aren’t a “set and forget” register. The whole point is that you keep coming back to them.

1. Stay on the hazard’s detail page.
2. Click Edit.
3. Set a Review date. A reasonable default is six months from now, shorter for higher-risk hazards.
4. Save.

Now your hazard has a future commitment baked into its row, and BRAG will turn it amber as the date approaches.

What you learned

• Hazards have a Basics → Assess → Control → Assign → Attachments shape. The same shape applies to every hazard you’ll ever add.
• Inherent risk is the worst case; residual risk is the current case with your controls applied.
• Controls reduce likelihood, severity, or both. The hierarchy of controls tells you which kinds work best.
• A hazard without a review date or a responsible person is a hazard you’ll forget about. SteadyOn nudges you about both.

Next

Continue to Tutorial 3: Report and Investigate an Incident.