RIE Uitvoeren: A Practical Checklist for Dutch Employers

RIE Uitvoeren: What It Actually Involves

If you searched "RIE uitvoeren," you are likely a Dutch employer, HSE coordinator, or manager who needs to carry out a Risico-Inventarisatie en -Evaluatie (RI&E) and wants a clear, practical starting point rather than a legal textbook.

An RI&E is a legal obligation under the Dutch Working Conditions Act (Arbeidsomstandighedenwet). Every employer with staff, regardless of company size, must have one. It identifies workplace risks and sets out a plan to address them. This article gives you a practical checklist for carrying it out. For a fuller walkthrough of the legal steps and requirements, see our guide on how to carry out an RI&E in the Netherlands.

Before You Start: Get the Basics Right

A few things to sort out before you begin the actual risk inventory:

• Confirm whether you need a certified expert. Companies with 25 or fewer employees using a recognized branch RI&E tool may self-assess. Larger or higher-risk companies typically need review by a certified occupational health and safety professional.
• Decide who is involved. Include employees or their representatives (works council, or an employee if there is no council). They know the day-to-day risks better than anyone.
• Gather existing documentation. Previous RI&Es, incident logs, near-miss reports, and existing corrective action lists all give you a head start.

Step-by-Step: Carrying Out the RI&E

1. Map every workplace, task, and process

Walk the floor. Talk to people. Do not rely only on desk research. Cover:

• Physical workplaces (production floors, warehouses, offices, vehicles)
• Equipment and machinery
• Chemical substances and how they are stored, handled, and transported
• Work processes, including night shifts, lone work, and contractor activity
• Psychosocial factors such as workload, aggression, and work pressure

2. Identify hazards per task or location

For each area mapped in step 1, list the hazards that could realistically cause harm: falls, exposure to substances, noise, repetitive strain, fire, or process-related risks.

3. Assess likelihood and severity

For every identified hazard, estimate:

• How likely is it that harm occurs?
• How severe would the harm be if it did?

This gives you a basis for prioritizing, rather than trying to fix everything at once.

4. Draft the plan of action (Plan van Aanpak)

The RI&E is not complete without this. For each significant risk, note:

• The measure that will reduce or eliminate it
• Who is responsible
• The deadline
• How progress will be checked

5. Have it reviewed or certified if required

If your company falls under the certification requirement, have a certified expert review the RI&E and plan of action before it becomes official.

6. Implement, track, and follow up

This is where many RI&E processes quietly fail. A plan of action that sits in a PDF on a shared drive rarely gets executed on schedule. Assign owners, set reminders, and track each corrective action to closure.

7. Review and update regularly

Update the RI&E whenever there is a significant change: new machinery, a new process, a workplace incident, or a change in regulations. Even without major changes, periodic review keeps it relevant.

Common Pitfalls When Carrying Out an RI&E

• Treating it as a one-off document. An RI&E that is never revisited stops reflecting reality within months.
• Skipping employee input. Risk inventories built entirely by management miss the risks that operators and technicians see every day.
• No clear ownership of follow-up actions. Identifying a risk without assigning who fixes it and by when means nothing changes.
• Using generic templates for specialized operations. A standard office-oriented RI&E template will not adequately capture risks in a chemical storage facility or a site with hazardous processes. For companies operating under stricter regimes, generic tools often fall short of what is actually needed, a challenge we cover in more depth in why generic safety management software falls short for Seveso III companies.

Where Digital Tools Help

Carrying out an RI&E on paper or in spreadsheets is possible, but it makes the follow-up phase harder to manage, especially across multiple sites or shifts. This is where inspection and audit software can support the process:

• Custom forms let you build a hazard identification checklist tailored to your actual workplaces, rather than adapting a generic template.
• Workflows route findings to the right person automatically, so nothing sits unassigned.
• Corrective-action tracking keeps the plan of action visible and accountable, with deadlines and status updates in one place instead of scattered documents.
• Clara, Capptions' AI assistant, can help surface patterns across past inspections and findings, making it easier to spot recurring risks when you review or update the RI&E.

None of this replaces the judgment of a certified expert or the legal obligation itself. It simply makes the practical, ongoing part of RI&E management, identifying risks, assigning actions, and following through, easier to keep on track. In the Dutch context, this kind of consistent follow-up also matters if the Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie ever reviews your documentation.

Getting Started

If you are about to carry out an RI&E, start with the mapping exercise this week rather than waiting for the "perfect" template. A rough but honest inventory, refined with employee input and reviewed by a qualified expert where required, will serve you better than a polished document that misses real risks.

If you want to see how Capptions can support the forms, workflows, and corrective-action tracking around your RI&E process, feel free to take a look or get in touch. It is a tool to make the work easier, not a substitute for the assessment itself.