Threat Modelling: Protecting Workers From Heatwaves
Build a practical, worker-centred plan to prevent heat-related harm at work.
Purpose of the template
This template helps organisations identify, assess, and reduce the risks that heatwaves and extreme heat create for workers. It supports safer working conditions for outdoor, indoor, remote, mobile, and vulnerable worker groups, while helping organisations maintain essential operations without putting people at risk.
The template is pre-filled with suggested hazards, scenarios, controls, and validation questions. Treat these as a starting point: adapt, remove, or add content to reflect your workforce, sites, climate, sector, and legal context.
Workshop description
Run this as a facilitated half-day workshop with people who understand the real working environment and have authority to approve action.
Before the workshop, choose the sites, worker groups, activities, and heat season to assess. Bring available evidence, including previous heat-related incidents and near misses, worker feedback, site maps, shift patterns, weather-alert information, existing health and safety procedures, and relevant legal requirements.
During the workshop, use one short idea per sticky note and work through the seven steps from left to right:
Aim — Agree the purpose, scope, and worker-protection objectives.
System & Context — Map worksites, microclimates, worker journeys, existing protections, heat alerts, and decision routes.
Identification — Identify root causes, realistic heat-risk scenarios, exposure factors, and vulnerability factors.
Risk Assessment — Assess likelihood, consequences, evidence, affected workers, and ownership; then select the priority risks.
Mitigation Plan — Agree preventive controls, owners, triggers, deadlines, and evidence of completion.
Response Protocol — Define what happens before, during, and after a heatwave, including escalation and work-stoppage triggers.
Validation & Review — Test whether the plan works in practice and agree improvements.
Prioritise controls that reduce heat exposure at source—such as shade, cooling, scheduling changes, rest breaks, and stopping unsafe work—before measures that rely only on individual workers.
After the workshop, share the plan in accessible languages and formats. Add agreed actions to health and safety plans, emergency procedures, business-continuity plans, supplier requirements, and investment decisions. Review the plan before each heat season, after serious heat incidents, and at least annually.
Who it is for
Use this template with workers, supervisors, health and safety representatives, union representatives, operational managers, facilities teams, HR, business continuity teams, and relevant technical or health experts.
What you’ll leave with
A shared view of worker heat risks, prioritised scenarios, practical controls, a clear heatwave response protocol, named owners, escalation routes, and an agreed review cycle.
