Risk Assessment and the Hierarchy of Controls
How to assess a manual task in a shop, kitchen or bar and apply the hierarchy of controls instead of relying on lifting technique.
Last reviewed September 2026 · Part of Manual Handling Training for Hospitality and Retail Workers
Key learning points
- Work through the identify, assess, control, review cycle
- Apply the hierarchy of controls to hospitality and retail manual tasks
- Consider the task, load, environment, equipment, timing and worker together
- Explain why technique alone is not a control
- Run a quick personal check before every handling task
The risk management cycle
- Identify the hazards — which tasks involve manual task risk factors? Ask the people who do them
- Assess the risk — how likely is harm, how serious could it be, and what makes it worse?
- Control the risk — apply the highest control that is reasonably practicable, not the cheapest or the quickest
- Review — check the control actually works on a busy night, and reassess when anything changes
What to consider when assessing
- The task
- How is it actually done, not how the procedure describes it? What postures, forces and repetitions are involved?
- The load
- Weight, size, shape, stability, grip, temperature — a keg, a crate of milk, a tray of glasses, a bag of linen
- The environment
- Floor surface, steps and ramps, aisle width, lighting, temperature, customers in the way, space to turn a trolley
- The equipment
- Is the right aid available, working, nearby and actually used? A keg trolley in a locked shed is not a control
- Timing
- Does the task land in a peak — the milk delivery during the breakfast rush, night fill before a public holiday?
- The worker
- Training, experience, fatigue, existing injury, how many people are rostered, whether they are new or casual
The hierarchy of controls
Most effective at the top
- Eliminate
- Remove the task — have kegs delivered directly into the cellar, have stock arrive on roll cages that go straight to the aisle, buy pre-portioned produce instead of decanting sacks
- Substitute
- Replace with something less hazardous — 10 kg bags instead of 25 kg sacks, six-bottle cartons instead of twelve, half-size hotel pans, smaller bins emptied more often
- Isolate / engineering
- Change the equipment or environment — keg lifters and cellar ramps, lift tables, height-adjustable checkouts, dock levellers, roller benches at the dishwasher, shelving that keeps heavy lines between knee and shoulder
- Administrative
- Change how the work is organised — a two-person rule for kegs and heavy cartons, deliveries scheduled outside peak, rotation between register and fill, breaks, procedures, training and supervision
- Personal protective equipment
- Least effective for manual tasks — grip gloves and non-slip footwear help, but they do not reduce the force applied to the body
Technique is not a control on its own
Telling staff to bend their knees does not make a 60 kg keg lighter or a bottom shelf higher. Risk should be controlled at its source so far as is reasonably practicable — by changing the task, the equipment or the layout. Training and technique support those controls; they do not replace them.
Controls you will see in well-run shops and kitchens
- Heavy and fast-moving lines shelved between knee and shoulder height, light and slow lines up high or down low
- Cartons opened and stock faced up straight from the roll cage or cart, not carried to the shelf by hand
- Deliveries received onto a pallet jack or trolley, never onto the footpath or the floor
- Kegs moved with a keg trolley by two people, with a ramp and a keg cradle at the cellar
- A milk crate trolley by the cool room, a sack truck by the dry store, a step stool in every aisle
- Checkout belts and bagging areas set up to keep items close, with hand scanners for heavy or bulky items
- Task rotation built into the roster — register, fill, returns, front of house
- Anti-fatigue mats where people stand still for long periods, and breaks that actually happen
Your quick check before every task
- Do I have to lift this at all — can it stay on the trolley or the pallet?
- Is there equipment for this, and is it within reach?
- How heavy is it really? Tip or rock it before committing
- Where is it going, how far, and is the path clear, dry and lit?
- Will I have to twist, reach over something or work above my shoulders?
- Is this a two-person job under our procedure?
- Am I rushing because of the queue, the driver or the clock?
- Have I done this task before and been shown how?
Practical scenario
Scenario: the milk delivery at 7 am
A café receives thirty crates of milk every morning at seven, during the breakfast rush. The driver leaves them on the footpath. The cool room is inside, through the café and down three steps. Whoever is free carries them in, two crates at a time, between making coffees.
Work through the hierarchy. What would a good set of controls look like?
Reveal the explanation
Eliminate or substitute first — ask the supplier to deliver before opening and to bring the crates to the cool room door, which many will do if asked. Engineering — a crate trolley for the flat sections, a ramp or a stair-climbing trolley for the steps, and shelving in the cool room so crates are not stacked on the floor. Administrative — one person rostered to receive the delivery rather than whoever is free, crates carried one at a time if they must be carried, and a rule that the barista does not leave the machine to do it. The answer is not to remind staff to bend their knees between coffees.
Practical scenario
Scenario: sore backs on register four
Three checkout operators mention lower back and shoulder soreness after shifts on register four. Its belt is shorter than the others, the bagging area sits lower, and it is the register nearest the bulky-goods aisle so it sees more cartons of drinks and bags of pet food.
What is the most effective response?
Reveal the explanation
Not a reminder to be careful. Assess the task at its source — compare the register with the others, measure belt length and bagging height, and watch how items actually move across it. Controls might include adjusting or replacing the bagging area, issuing a hand scanner so heavy items are scanned in the trolley, limiting how long anyone is rostered on that register, and rotating operators. Then check whether the soreness reports stop; if they do not, the assessment is not finished.
When to review
Review a control whenever the task, the load, the layout, the equipment or the staffing changes — a new supplier packs in bigger cartons, the store is refitted, the crate trolley breaks — and after any incident, near miss or report of discomfort. A control that works on a quiet Tuesday and is abandoned on a busy Saturday is not a control.
Knowledge check
These questions are for your own learning. They are not part of the final assessment.
1. Which approach is most effective for reducing hazardous manual handling risk?
Risk should be controlled at its source. Technique reminders and PPE are the weakest responses to manual task risk.
2. A café owner rearranges the dry store so 20 kg sacks are kept on a bench at waist height instead of on the floor. Where does this sit in the hierarchy of controls?
Changing the layout or equipment removes the bend from the task itself. It is more reliable than relying on how each worker lifts.
3. Which of the following is an administrative control?
Administrative controls change how work is organised — timing, staffing, procedures and rotation. The other options are elimination, substitution and engineering controls.
4. When should a manual task risk assessment be reviewed?
Review is triggered by change, incidents, reports of discomfort and evidence that a control is being skipped in practice.