A job safety analysis (JSA) is a procedure that helps integrate accepted safety and health principles and practices into a particular task or job operation. The goal of a JSA is to identify potential hazards of a specific role and recommend procedures to control or prevent these hazards.
Other terms often used to describe this procedure are job hazard analysis (JHA), hazardous task analysis (HTA) and job hazard breakdown.
The terms "job" and "task" are commonly used interchangeably to mean a specific work assignment. Examples of work assignments include "operating a grinder," "using a pressurized water extinguisher" or "changing a flat tire." Each of these tasks have different safety hazards that can be highlighted and fixed by using the job safety analysis.
Other common mechanisms of injury include:
Consequence is the severity of the injury or harm that can be reasonably and realistically expected from exposure to the mechanism of injury of the hazard being rated. An implemented control may affect the severity of the injury, but it has no effect on the way the injury occurred. Therefore, when rating risk, the consequence remains the same for both the initial rating and the residual rating. People inherently tend to overestimate severity of consequence when rating risk, but the rating should be both reasonable and realistic.
Controls are the barriers between people and/or assets and the hazards. Controls can also be thought of as "guardrails" that prevent negative impacts from occurring.
The effectiveness of a control is measured by its ability to reduce the likelihood of a hazard causing injury or damage. A control is either effective or not.
To gauge this effectiveness several control criteria are used, which:
There is no commonly used mathematical way in which multiple controls for a single hazard can be combined to give a score that meets an organizations acceptable risk level. In instances where the residual risk is greater than the organisations acceptable risk level, consultation with the organizations relevant risk authority should occur.
Hierarchy of control is a system used in industry to minimize or eliminate exposure to hazards.[4] It is a widely accepted system promoted by numerous safety organizations. This concept is taught to managers in industry, to be promoted as a standard practice in the workplace. Various illustrations are used to depict this system, most commonly a triangle.
The hierarchy of hazard controls are, in descending order of effectiveness: Elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment.
A job safety analysis is a documented risk assessment developed when company policy directs employees to do so. Workplace hazard identification and an assessment of those hazards may be required before every job.
Analyses are usually developed when directed to do so by a supervisor, when indicated by the use of a first tier risk assessment and when a hazard associated with a task has a likelihood rating of 'possible' or greater.
Generally, high consequence, high likelihood task hazards are addressed by way of a job safety analysis. These may include, but are not limited to, those with a history of, or potential for, injury, harm or damage such as those involving:
It is important that employees understand that it is not the JSA form that will keep them safe on the job, but rather the process it represents. It is of little value to identify hazards and devise controls if the controls are not put in place. Workers should never be tempted to "sign on" the bottom of a JSA without first reading and understanding it.
JSAs are quasi-legal documents, and are often used in incident investigations and court cases.
The analysis is usually created by the work group who will perform the task. The more minds and experience applied to analysing the hazards in a job, the more successful the work group is likely to be in controlling them. Sometimes it is expedient to review a JSA that was prepared when the same task was performed on a previous occasion, but care should be taken to ensure that all of the hazards for the job are controlled for the new occasion. The JSA is usually recorded in a standardized tabular format with three to as many as five or six columns. The more columns used, the more in-depth the job safety analysis will be. The analysis is subjective to what the role being investigated entails. The headings of the three basic columns are: Job step, hazard and controls. A hazard is any factor that can cause damage to personnel, property or the environment (some companies include loss of production or downtime in the definition as well). A control is any process for controlling a hazard. The job is broken down into its component steps. Then, for each step, hazards are identified. Finally, for each hazard identified, controls are listed. In the example below, the hazards are analyzed for the task of erecting scaffolding and welding lifting lugs:
| Job | Hazard | Control | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Erecting scaffolding | Falling scaffolding components | Barricade work area while erecting and dismantling scaffolding | |
| Working at height | Verify scaffolder competence Inspect scaffold components and structure Tag scaffolding after approval Wear appropriate protective equipment (harness, hard hats, safety footwear etc.) Tether tools | ||
| Welding | Electrical current | Wear insulated gloves Inspect cables, connections and tools before use | |
| Welding fumes | Ventilate using intrinsically safe fume extraction fans Wear respiratory protection when appropriate | ||
| Welding arc | Wear welding helmet with eye protection, fire resistant overalls, welding gloves and apron Erect welding screens if appropriate | ||
| Hot weld metal, sparks and slag | Remove all combustibles from work area Lay out fireproof drop cloths. Set up appropriate fire fighting equipment in work area Maintain a fire watch during task plus 30 minutes. | ||
| Housekeeping | Obstacles in work area | Maintain a clear path work area Remove unnecessary and vulnerable equipment Display warning signage Barricade danger areas |
Some organizations add columns for risk levels. The risk rating of the hazard prior to applying the control is known as the 'inherent risk rating'. The risk rating of the hazard with the control in place is known as the 'residual' risk rating.
Risk, within the occupational health and safety sphere, is defined as the 'effect of uncertainties on objectives[5] '. In the context of rating a risk, it is the correlation of 'likelihood' and 'consequence', where likelihood is a quantitative evaluation of frequency of occurrences over time, and consequence is a qualitative evaluation of both the "Mechanism of Injury" and the reasonable and realistic estimate of "severity of injury".
Example:
There is historical precedent to reasonably and realistically evaluate that the likelihood of an adverse event occurring while operating a hot particle producing tool, (grinder), is "possible", therefore the activity of grinding meets the workplace hazard criteria.
It would also be reasonable and realistic to assume that the mechanism of injury of an eye being struck at high speed with hot metal particles may result in a permanent disability, whether it be the eye of the grinder operator, a crew member or any person passing or working adjacent to, above or below the grinding operation.
The severity of reasonably and realistically expected injury may be blindness. Therefore, grinding warrants a high severity rating.
Wearing eye protection while in the vicinity of grinding operations reduces the likelihood of this adverse event occurring.
If the eye protection was momentarily not used, not fitted correctly or failed and hot high speed particles struck an eye, the expected mechanism of injury (adverse event) has still occurred, hence the consequence rating remains the same for both the inherent and residual consequence rating.
It is accepted that the control may affect the severity of injury, however, the rated consequence remains the same as the effect is not predictable.
One of the known risk rating anomalies is that likelihood and the severity of injury can be scaled, but mechanism of injury cannot be scaled. This is the reason why the mechanism of injury is bundled with severity, to allow a rating to be given. The MoI is an important factor as it suggests the obvious controls.
Another column that is often added to a JSA form or worksheet is the Responsible column. The Responsible column is for the name of the individual who will put the particular control in place. Defining who is responsible for actually putting the controls in place that have been identified on the JSA worksheet ensures that an individual is accountable for doing so.
After the JSA worksheet is completed, the work group that is about to perform the task would have a toolbox talk, to discuss the hazards and controls, delegate responsibilities, ensure that all equipment and personal protective equipment described in the JSA are available, that contingencies such as fire fighting are understood, communication channels and hand signals are agreed etc. Then, if everybody in the work group agrees that it is safe to proceed with the task, work can commence.
If at any time during the task circumstances change, then work should be stopped (sometimes called a "time-out for safety"), and the hazards and controls described in the JSA should be reassessed and additional controls used or alternative methods devised. Again, work should only continue when every member of the work group agrees it is safe to do so.
When the task is complete it is often of benefit to have a close-out or "tailgate" meeting, to discuss any lessons learned so that they may be incorporated into the JSA the next time the task is undertaken.