How to build your risk register

A crucial part of your risk management strategy is your risk register. But what exactly is a risk register? How do you build a good one? And what are the benefits of making your risk register embedded, holistic, and integrated into your business?

In this article, we've asked our services team to answer some of your risk register frequently asked questions.

1) What is a risk register?

A risk register, also referred to as a risk log, helps you to track issues and address problems as they arise.

A typical risk register contains:

A risk category to group similar risks
The risk breakdown structure identification number
A brief description or name of the risk to make the risk easy to discuss
The impact or consequences if the event actually occurs
The probability or likelihood of its occurrence
The risk score or risk rating is the multiplication of Probability and Impact and is often used to rank the risks.
Common mitigation steps are identify, analyse, plan response, monitor and control.
Response methodology:
- Contingent response - the actions to be taken should the risk event actually occur.
- Contingency - the budget allocated to the contingent response
- Trigger - an event that itself results in the risk event occurring (for example the risk event might be "flooding" and "heavy rainfall" the trigger)

2) Why create a risk register?

The six top advantages to creating a risk register are:

Communicate and understand the nature of the risks the organisation faces
The first step in taking a risk based approach to act upon the high impact / high probability risks
Engage leadership with the risk management process
Take a collaborative approach to risk assessment and treatment processes
Effective management of resources and assets
Have in place early warning factors to increase the thresholds.

3) Do you need software to manage a risk register?

Risk management software is a core tool for many organisations to manage their risk register because it:

Eliminates administrative burden
Promotes a collaborative approach - workflows and notifications sent to your team ensures the right person is notified at the right time about a risk
Provides an audit trail and formal approach for regulatory / customer audits
Enables a joined-up, integrated approach to risk management
Instant risk reporting

4) How do you create a risk register?

A best practice approach to creating a risk register involves:

Establish your categories. These may be:
- - - Financial
    - Compliance
    - Health and safety
    - Strategic
    - Operational
Plan your risk assessment process
Log new risks