Risk Assessment Examples: 3 Complete Worked Examples, and What Good Looks Like

Templates tell you what boxes to fill. Guides tell you what the five steps are. But most people searching for risk assessment examples want something simpler and more useful: to see what a finished one actually looks like, written by someone who knows what they are doing. That is what this article provides: three complete worked examples, an office, a warehouse and a hybrid home worker, each realistic enough to compare against your own, followed by the tells that separate a genuine assessment from a box-ticking one.

One caution before the examples. A risk assessment must reflect your actual workplace, your people and your work. These examples show the standard to aim for, and the HSE publishes its own template and examples in the same spirit, but copying an example and changing the company name produces a document about a fictional business. Use these to calibrate your judgement, not to replace it.

Example one: a small office

The setting: a 20-person professional office over one floor, screen-based work, a small kitchen, occasional visitors.

Hazard	Who could be harmed and how	Controls in place	Further action, owner and date
Prolonged display screen work	All staff: musculoskeletal strain, eye fatigue	Adjustable chairs and monitors, DSE assessment for every user, eye tests offered	Re-assess two flagged workstations; Office Manager; 14 days
Trailing cables and congested walkways	Staff and visitors: trips and falls	Cable management installed, walkways kept clear, monthly walk-round	Add walk-round item for meeting room refit; Office Manager; this month
Fire	Everyone: smoke inhalation, burns, death	Current fire risk assessment, tested alarms, clear escape routes, two trained marshals	Refresh marshal training, one certificate expiring; HR; 30 days
Kitchen appliances	Staff: burns, electrical shock	PAT-tested appliances, no daisy-chained extensions, defect reporting route	None currently
Workload pressure at peak periods	All staff: stress, fatigue	Workload reviewed in one-to-ones, deadline planning, raised-concern route via manager or HR	Review after year-end peak; Directors; next quarter

Notice what makes this credible: the hazards include stress alongside the physical basics, every action has a named owner and a date, and one row honestly says "none currently" because not every hazard needs a new action every review.

Example two: a warehouse

The setting: a distribution warehouse, 40 staff over two shifts, forklift operations, racked storage to 8 metres.

Hazard	Who could be harmed and how	Controls in place	Further action, owner and date
Forklift and pedestrian collision	All floor staff: crush injuries, death	Physical barriers and marked walkways, one-way system, trained and authorised drivers only, high-vis mandatory	Extend barrier at loading dock corner; Site Manager; 21 days
Manual handling of stock	Pickers and loaders: back and musculoskeletal injury	Mechanical aids provided, weight limits marked, technique training with annual refresher	Reassess two heaviest pick lines; Team Leads; this month
Racking failure	Anyone nearby: crush injuries	Load limits displayed, weekly damage checks, annual expert inspection, damaged bays isolated immediately	None currently
Working at height during picking	Pickers: falls	Proper access platforms only, no ladder improvisation, harness rule above first tier	Toolbox talk on new platform model; Site Manager; 7 days
Night shift fatigue	Night crew: impaired judgement around vehicles	Rotation pattern limits consecutive nights, breaks enforced, fatigue in supervisor briefings	Review rotation after peak season; Operations; next quarter

The tell here is specificity. "Extend barrier at loading dock corner" is a real action from a real walk-round; a generic assessment would say "monitor traffic routes" and change nothing.

Example three: a hybrid home worker

The setting: one employee working three days a week from home at a desk in a spare room.

Hazard	Who could be harmed and how	Controls in place	Further action, owner and date
Makeshift workstation	Employee: musculoskeletal strain developing over months	Home DSE self-assessment completed, company chair and monitor provided	Photo review of setup at next one-to-one; Line Manager; 30 days
Electrical setup at home	Employee: shock, fire	Company equipment visually checked annually, guidance issued on sockets and extensions	None currently
Isolation and overwork	Employee: stress, disconnection, blurred boundaries	Weekly one-to-ones, core hours agreed, out-of-hours contact discouraged	Check workload at probation review; Line Manager; 6 weeks
Accident while working alone at home	Employee: delayed help	Check-in norms agreed, emergency contact held	None currently

This is the example most businesses are missing entirely. The duty of care follows the work home, and a hybrid assessment this simple, four rows, fifteen minutes, closes a gap that most employers have left open since 2020.

The five tells of a genuine risk assessment

Put any assessment, including your own, against these tells. First, the hazards are specific to the actual workplace, not copied from a generic list; you can picture the exact corner, task or desk being described. Second, controls describe what is really in place today, not what the policy says should be. Third, every further action has an owner and a date, because an action nobody owns is a wish. Fourth, it includes the unfashionable hazards, stress, fatigue, lone working, not just the photogenic physical ones. Fifth, it has a review rhythm and shows evidence of past reviews, because a risk assessment with one date on it is a snapshot of a business that no longer exists.

If your documents pass all five, you are ahead of most. If they fail, our guides to the five steps of risk assessment and choosing a risk assessment template cover the method, and this is exactly what health and safety audits test at depth.

Scaling from examples to a system

One good assessment is achievable with care. Fifty of them, current, consistent and provable across multiple sites and countries, is a system problem, and it is where examples stop helping. That is the point at which consultants and software together earn their keep: qualified health and safety consultants making sure every assessment is genuinely suitable and sufficient, and a platform keeping them current, owned and visible everywhere, aligned with frameworks such as ISO 45001. For businesses operating across borders, where the same duty takes different documentary forms from country to country, international health and safety consultants keep one world-class standard running through every version.

Where Arinite fits

Arinite has spent 15+ years writing, reviewing and systematising risk assessments that describe real businesses rather than fictional ones. We support 1,500+ businesses across 50+ countries and have helped protect 100,000+ employees, with a 95% client retention rate. As global health and safety consultants, we combine expert judgement with software that keeps every assessment current and every action owned, across every site you operate.

The fastest way to find out whether your risk assessments would pass the five tells is a free gap analysis. Our specialists review your current arrangements and tell you plainly what is working and what is not. Book your free gap analysis and see how yours compare.