[Music] Hari Krishna, welcome to risk assessment. Uh this is a module in risk management and part of the principles of temple administration course. So uh to do a risk assessment basically you need to understand what in your business might cause harm to people and then decide whether you're doing enough to prevent that harm.
Once you decided that you need to identify, prioritize and then put into place appropriate and sensible control measures. And then as time goes on, you basically need to review those measures and make sure that everything is carrying on. This is risk management or assessment in a nutshell.
We're going to use a five-step process. It's based on Australian standards. First, we're going to identify risks.
Then, we're going to analyze them, evaluate them, treat them, monitor, and review them. So, let's get stuck in. First you can see here's a diagram that shows that basically uh the majority of organizations they don't have adequate risk management practices.
That probably includes you um if I'm not mistaken and more or less it also probably would include me. Um, what is a risk? Is a potential danger that threatens to harm or destroy an object, an event or a person.
So, I mean, we deal with risks every day. Just getting in and out of a car, getting on an airplane, taking a train, walking out the front door, you know, just getting out of bed sometimes involves some risk. Of course, we can become obsessed and consumed uh or uh become even compulsive about these things, worrying about them all the time.
But the point is at least to a greater or lesser extent, we should be able to be prepared and recognize what are potential risks um around our temple or center. So the first one is that we identify the risks. So this is usually a simple brainstorming exercise.
Again, you create a team or you get the leaders together and you look at each area of the temple or the center and you identify what are some potential risks here. Um, it's best done by leaders who have operational responsibilities in different areas and know the p practice the practical aspects of the temple. Um, you can also get an external and independent company to come in and do a risk assessment.
Um that way it would help you to make sure that it's thorough because sometimes when you're so close to things you just accept certain things as they are uh without even recognizing that they pose a serious risk. And in this regard, you can see here we're giving you a uh a risk assessment matrix by which you can look at and and understand identify different types of potential risks. Step two, now that you've identified all these risks, now we're going to look at them and we're going to analyze them.
Um and that means that you can follow a uh universal table that we've included here which helps you to rank the risks based on the likelihood of occurrence and how much impact the event would have on your templar center. So using this matrix uh or this little graph or chart here then you can you can kind of understand how serious the risk is. So with that in place, then we need to evaluate the risks.
Once you have a list of analyzed risks, it's time to prioritize them. You got to rank the risks in order of highest to lowest. And at this point, many organizations get overwhelmed because to your to your surprise, you may find that there are quite a few things hanging around the Templar Center that are of pretty high risk.
But don't become discouraged. Take the list, look at it, choose five to 10 of the top priority risks and really try to start doing something about them. Even if you just choose five, uh there may be 10, 20, 30, 40, maybe even up to 50 possible risks.
Just choose the top five. And then we move to the next step after evaluating um you take those and you ask yourself a simple question. Are we comfortable with the way that this risk is being handled?
Are we happy that this risk is there and maybe nothing's being done about it or someone's saying, "Yeah, yeah, we'll get to it later. " Or, "Yeah, we're waiting for this or we're waiting for that. " Believe me.
Um and and the temple that I I assist to look after perpetually perpetually we're dealing with things that are even super high risk that trying to get parts for things trying to replace things uh machinery or uh or you know I I mean it's unlimited. So I understand the struggles but we have to be persistent in trying to work on these things. Um, now that there's a summary, uh, it's this is called a a risk register and we've included a a list or risk register there, an example.
Now, we've got your list of risks. What we're going to do is we're going to try to treat these risks. Okay?
That means we're going to try to sort them out. Now, there are a number of different ways that you can treat or look after a risk once it's been identified, uh, evaluated, and ranked, as it were. Uh the first thing you can do is try to avoid that risk altogether.
You got to do something to remove it um or or ban the activity whatever it is because as you'll see in the risk matrix it can be a number of different things but we have to do something to remove that risk altogether. Uh we can transfer the risk means that you can make someone else responsible for the risk. Perhaps you can engage a contractor or a third party to look after whatever this risk area is.
Uh getting appropriate insurance coverage that might be a a risk transfer strategy. Um you can mitigate the risk. So you can take actions actions that will lessen the impact or the chance of the risk actually occurring.
uh create risk strategies, plans, policies. Again and again we keep talking about policies and procedures for risks and adjust behaviors where necessary to reduce the risk. A lot of time there's risk just because people don't really identify something as a problem or an issue.
They think it's normal. So sometimes people have to be educated. We have to accept the risk.
uh you might calculate that the risk uh calculate the risk and decide that it's it's not worth taking or doing anything. So maybe you're planning a certain project or program or an event and you realize that by doing this is such a huge risk. Forget it.
We're not going to do it. Whatever the cost, you know, we're just not going to do it. Um monitor and review.
Okay. So once you've decided to take some action um and treat these risks, then you need to monitor and review because what happens often times is you might fix something for a little while, but then it's bound to get broken again or the nature of the material world is that things degrade. So the degradation process will just start working again.
So someone has to be perpetually watching and looking after these potential risk areas. Um every temple uh big or small should allocate one or two people at least to champion and manage risk assessment processes. Uh they should provide regular reports uh as well as coordinate uh the assessment of any new activities.
So basically you get yourself a risk assessment team and they start looking at anything you do. Uh, one of our other uh, modules was event planning where we talked about having a risk assessment. So then you bring in your team.
They're expert. They know how to find potential dangers and you need to find people in your community who who are expert at doing this kind of thing. There are people who are just naturals at at different areas that you yourself may not be inclined to, but I'm sure there's someone out there.
I know when I met one devotey and she mentioned to me that she loves filing and doing administration and I just thought I didn't realize that God had created people like you two. I'm so happy because when you manage a temple or a center you've got to file documents. You've got to keep things around.
You've got to know where they are. You've got to have access to them, you know, and to find people who like to do these things. So uh basically like that they create a best you know a course of best practice and they schedule reviews in advance like that.
What are some of the common risks? There's a list here that we've provided. Uh people risks uh that means public safety, child safety, youth activities.
These are people risks. property risk. It means damage, fire, theft.
One of our other modules I discussed about facility management. You know, if you have all of these policies and procedures in place, the risk of something happening is so greatly reduced. And that's the whole point.
Again, again, I keep saying it. These activities, these modules and training units, they're all based around cultivating the mode of goodness and understanding how to work with the material nature in such a way that it gives us the least problems or difficulties as possible. Um, reputation risks.
So, this is another type of risk management or a risk assessment. So there's some some things that we might do that may diminish or destroy um the impact of our preaching simply by damaging our reputation. Uh consider uh our process of dealing with the media and publicity good or bad.
So this is a different type of risk that we might not have thought of. Governance risks. So this is uh if you're a charity, usually you would have governors or trustees or directors.
Um so some examples of government risks are are splits uh uh in the leadership. Um moral leadership failures. Um so if the the leaders have uh their their morals are are broken or downtrodden uh unaccountable m unaccountable major administration decisions means someone's making a decision they weren't accountable they didn't make themselves accountable and and now everybody's accountable.
finance risks. These are general, we know about um balancing faith ventures and wise management. Um they're critical to long-term viability.
Sometimes we just go for it, you know, and then we find out, well, we wish we hadn't gone for it. Maybe we should have balanced things a little more. Volunteers risks.
So volunteers fall into a completely different category. And um uh one of our other modules covers this quite in depth that they might not be considered the same as employees. So you have to really look into it.
It be a variety of different types of risks. This is just a few. Um and risk assessment can really help us to understand what are the potential danger areas, how are we managing them.
So in conclusion, uh the information provided in this document, it is brief and it is relatively basic. uh but we're just trying to give you some food for thought and some a basic uh premise by which you can begin to look at and manage the risk within your your temple uh or your center. Um it's a good idea to consult uh your local authorities or risk assessment uh specialists if you really want to get a little more in depth.
Otherwise, we thank you very very much for your time and attention. Uh and very grateful for the fact that you're you're taking your energy and time to to go through this course. We sincerely hope it's of some service to you and is beneficial in some way.
Thank you very much. Har Krishna.
