A risk register is more than a static document it must evolve as your organization does. Approaching your annual review without refreshing risk entries invites blind spots, outdated assumptions, and missed mitigation opportunities. To remain relevant, risk registers should be updated proactively throughout the year, not just in one annual session.

Best practice guidance from HSE Ireland (2021) notes that a risk register should record each risk’s description, controls, ownership, and status, and should be regularly updated to reflect changes in work processes, new hazards, or shifts in business context (Health Service Executive, 2009). By treating the risk register as a dynamic repository, organizations can capture emerging risks, retire mitigated ones, and adjust likelihood or impact scores as conditions evolve.

OSHA recommends that safety and health programs undergo periodic evaluation at least annually but also trigger reviews when significant changes occur, such as new equipment, altered workflows, or incidents (Occupational Safety and Health Administration, n.d.). That logic extends naturally to risk registers: any new process change or event should prompt a register update.

Project management literature also emphasizes continuous risk maintenance. Updating the risk register is an ongoing task, not a one-and-done step, ensuring the document always reflects the current risk landscape (Team Asana, 2025). This means adjusting risk scoring, revising responses, adding or removing risks, and assigning new risk owners when roles shift.

When annual review time arrives, a well-maintained register becomes a strategic asset rather than a scramble. Teams should review each entry’s status, validate controls, adjust risk ratings based on experience or data, ensure owners remain current, and confirm that mitigation actions were executed. This ensures that audit or executive review time focuses on insights—not cleanup.

At Key Safety LLC, we help organizations operationalize this approach. During Document Development for Start-up Projects, we build living risk register templates with built-in review triggers, ownership fields, and status tracking. Our Service on Demand refreshes registers after incidents or process changes, and during annual prep. In Regular Consultation Service, we schedule periodic audits, recommend updates, and coach leadership on how to sustain an evolving risk register as the foundation of resilient, compliant operations.

Updating the risk register ahead of the annual review isn’t extra work it’s foundational work that saves scramble time, improves decision-making, and demonstrates maturity in risk management.

References

Team Asana. (2025, February 1). Risk register: A project manager’s guide with examples. Asana. https://asana.com/resources/risk-register

Health Service Executive. (2009, April). Developing and Populating a Risk Register Best Practice Guidance. https://www.hse.ie/eng/about/who/riskmanagement/developing-and-populating-a-risk-register-best-practuice-guide.pdf

Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (n.d.). Safety Management – Program evaluation and improvement. U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.osha.gov/safety-management/program-evaluation