How to conduct a job hazard analysis: JHA checklist

A job hazard analysis (JHA), sometimes called a job safety analysis (JSA), is an important tool for identifying and reducing hazards in any industry. It’s a technique that identifies the dangers associated with specific job tasks and provides solutions to reduce the risk of an injury to workers.

Why it matters

According to the Liberty Mutual 2019 Workplace Safety Index, workplace injuries costs U.S. companies more than $1 million every week. The report lists top causes of the most serious injuries (those resulting in five or more days of workdays lost), and it’s based on information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Examples of serious injuries include overexertion and falls from the same level. Many assume that these injuries occur in high-hazard job environments, but injury rates in retail are often higher than in manufacturing and construction.

So, why does conducting a JHA matter? Because, if you know what potential hazards exist for a particular job, you can reduce or eliminate them before any of your workers get hurt. You can also use a JHA to ensure that your workers are performing tasks correctly. These practices will save your organization costs associated with injuries.

Conducting a JHA

Here is a simple job hazard analysis checklist of things you want to do alongside your assessment:

1. Involve your workers: Your workers have a hands-on understanding of the job, which is invaluable in finding potential hazards. Involving your workers helps them take ownership of their own safety and strengthens your site’s safety culture.

2. Review your organization’s accident history: Past incidents will help you identify existing hazards that may not have had adequate protections and require further analysis.

3. Consult OSHA regulations: Referring to OSHA standards when you create action items following your analysis is important for ensuring that all your changes comply.

4. List, rank, and set priorities: When performing multiple JHAs, start with the jobs that have a high injury or illness rate. Then, move on to less critical areas of the operation.

These tips will enhance your analysis and make it easier for you to find valuable areas to improve.

Where to start

Break the job task into steps. Include enough information to describe each job task without getting overly detailed. Review the steps with your workers to make sure you did not miss something.

Getting input for the worker who performs the job is most valuable, but you can also identify the hazards of each step by asking yourself:

  • What can go wrong?
  • What are the consequences?
  • How could it happen?
  • What are other contributing factors?
  • How likely is it that the hazard would occur?

Once you have your list of hazards, review it with workers who do the job and seek their input on ways to eliminate or reduce the hazards.

Example JHA form

Having a standard job hazard analysis form makes it easier to log all the assessments you’ve completed. We have created a free template that you can download to get started, although you may want to update it to match your site’s needs.

Monica Kinsey

Monica is a former warehouse operations manager with a passion for workplace safety. Her favorite topics to cover include safety leadership and continuous improvement.