State Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Lithuania - Litva

The new OiRA tool for the „Hairdressers and beauty salons“ has been developed and published in Lithuania. The tool is created for all companies and self-employed persons, that provide hairdressing and beauty services to the society. The tool covers the main risks at work, such as chemicals, cosmetics, electronic devices, skin irritation, slips and trips, ergonomics, personal protective equipment etc.

The OiRA tool for bakeries has been developed to help small and medium-sized enterprises whose economic activity is 'bakery and flour products' to asses the risks at their workplaces. The tool helps to identify the hazards faced by employees who work in these economic activities, including work equipment, hazardous and dangerous materials, hot surfaces, manual handling of loads, etc. Preventive measures are also proposed that may help eliminate or reduce the risk to an acceptable level. With the help of the OiRA tool, employers will be able to assess the occupational risks posed by the risks faced by employees and to create a work environment that is safe for workers and does not harm their health.

The tool is suitable for educational staff in a wide variety of educational establishments, such as pre-school educational establishments, schools, training schools and universities. People working in the sector are facing risks related to dealing with a lot of different psychosocial risk factors, such as third party violence, bullying and high workload, ergonomic risk factors, e.g. related to standing/seated work and many others as well as other physical risks such as exposure to noise. The tool starts with the identification of hazards and assesses the level of risk, then it allows end-users to choose the most suitable preventive actions to eliminate or reduce risk. Also included are measures for prevention. This tool is an easy way to improve working conditions of teachers.

The agricultural sector is one of the most dangerous sectors having high figures on accidents at work. Accidents often occur due to inappropriate machinery, unprotected parts of the machinery, not preventing workers from entering hazardous areas etc. Employees assigned to work with agricultural machinery are often not trained properly about safety and health at work and are not aware of the safety and health requirements set by the equipment manufacturer for the operation of the equipment. in addition people working in the sector are facing risks related to dealing with dangerous substances, high physical workload because of manual handling, etc. Proper health and safety risk assessments done with this tool, can prevent many of these risks and help the employer to find proper solutions.

This tool is for hotels and restaurants. The main hazards of these activities are manual handling, slips, falls, trips and psychological factors as well as hot surfaces and biological factors. In order to minimize these risks, the key preventive measures are training, job re-placement, knowledge of stress relief principles and etc.

This tool is created for small and medium laundries including washing, dry cleaning, stain cleaning, ironing, and steam ironing.

This tool is for companies that carry out sewing, cutting and ironing services.The main hazards of these activities are electricity, manual handling, sharp tools, long-term seating work, slips, falls, trips and uncomfortable work tables. In order to minimise these risks, the key preventive measures are training, job re-placement, knowledge of ergonomic principles, breaks, maintenance of equipment and so on.

This tool is for companies that manufacture plastic products like polyurethane, composite plastic products, polystyrene foam products, thermoplastic products and recycle plastic waste. The main hazards in this sector are moving parts of equipment, manual handling, biological risk factors, dangerous chemicals, noise and electricity. In order to minimise these risks, it is important to use work equipment in good condition, to use safety signs, to ensure proper ventilation, to use personal protective equipment and to train workers.

Health and safety cannot be ignored in the furniture production. The negative effects of technologies on workers' lungs, fingers, ears, eyes and so on must be minimised by providing adequate training, supervision and safety equipment. Health hazards include exposure to wood dust, dangerous chemicals, noise, unguarded machinery, non-ergonomic handling procedures and fire/explosion.

This tool deals with companies within the cleaning services sector. The main difficulty of these companies is that employees must clean the offices of other companies and therefore, it is more difficult to assess all risks at their workplaces. The tool is focused on the hazardous works, including working at heights during the cleaning of the big windows, the use of chemicals at work and so on. The tool can also be used by companies which have their own employees/cleaners.

This tool is intended for mining and quarrying companies, especially for those who perform their activity in mineral surfaces and extractive industries. It includes mandatory modules like the risk factors, including explosion and fire risks, and also risks associated to heavy equipment (excavators, dredgers, tractors, sifting machines and so on) which can be activated according to the works in the quarries. This tool includes works like the falling of trees and bushes in the quarries.

The woodworking sector is considered as a high-risk sector of economic activities, because many accidents occur in this sector. This OiRA tool covers practically all possible activities and equipment that could be used in woodworking operations. It is important to remember that along with the complex wood processing equipment a variety of chemicals are used for wood coating. Employees may suffer from excessive noise, wood dust, handling, and use of dangerous chemicals, also the risk of the explosions. Therefore, this OiRA tool includes many effective preventive measures to eliminate or reduce risks.

This OiRA tool is suitable for small and medium-sized garages. Car repair work include a lot of different and dangerous working operations. Therefore, the workers are exposed to different risks which are directly dependent on the working operations. This tool allows assess to the main risks in this sector of economic activity, such as body painting, body repair, welding and others. Thanks to this OiRA tool the workers are aware of all potential hazards at the workplace and know the preventive measures to reduce or eliminate the risk.

OiRA tool Working in offices includes practically all the possible work that can be performed in the office. This work may seem less dangerous because it does not include the dangerous technological processes and dangerous equipment. However ergonomic risk factors are very important, because workers can suffer back and wrist pain due to bad body position during work. Also very important are psychosocial risk factors, such as stress at work and mobbing.

Wholesale and retail sales of non-food products is a complex economic activity because a variety of lifting equipment for heavy loads is used in this sector and so on. This OiRA is developed specifically for those companies which carry out both wholesale trade in warehouses and retail sales in sales markets. It is obvious that the retail trade is a less dangerous activity, because lifting equipment are less frequently used. However, the manual handling of loads is classified as hazardous work and may affect the health of workers and the various spinal diseases because of the lifting heavy loads.