Customise your risk matrix

Set the matrix your assessors score on — labels, bands and severity floors — once, for the whole organisation.

4 min read · Last reviewed 18 August 2026

Open the matrix editor

  1. 1

    Open Settings → Risk matrix — administrator territory, because the matrix is organisation-wide by design.

  2. 2

    Review the default 5×5: likelihood and severity labels, and the band each cell falls into.

Make it yours — within the guardrails

  1. 1

    Rename likelihood and severity levels into your organisation’s vocabulary.

  2. 2

    Adjust which cells fall into which band, where your scheme genuinely differs.

  • Banding is shared: every assessment in the workspace scores on this one matrix, so two assessors cannot produce different colours for the same score.

  • Severity floors hold: the highest severities cannot be banded down to trivial, whatever the likelihood — the matrix will not accept it.

Note: Existing assessments keep their published versions untouched; the matrix governs how new scoring reads.

When to change it

  • Match an existing corporate scheme when you arrive with one — assessors should not translate in their heads.

  • Otherwise, the default is a sound HSE-style matrix; the best matrix is usually the one you stop discussing.

About this moduleRisk assessmentsThe HSE five-step method as a working editor — signed, versioned, acknowledged by the people it protects.