Whether you’re heading to a construction site, client site, or another off-site location to perform work, a JHA is usually required, and for that, you’re going to need a Job Hazard Analysis Checklist.

The Job Hazard Analysis Checklist corresponds with a pre-work safety and hazards awareness inspection. This safety audit will encompass the steps workers need to take to accomplish the project goals, the hazards encountered at each step, and how you may take actions to reduce, mitigate, or remove the hazards from the job site.

You can call it a Job Hazard Analysis or a Job Safety Analysis or audit, but the intent and purpose are the same for these interchangeable terms. The process is simple:

1. Investigate a workplace site for hazards. Investigate the steps and tasks workers will be required to perform.
2. Identify hazards that workers or others may encounter during the project, given all potential conditions on the job site.
3. Identify and implement measures to reduce, mitigate, and remove hazards as much as possible from the workplace.

In this article, we’ll review the free downloadable JHA checklist provided to aid your business in a safe and successful JHA or JSA audit and workplace. Whether construction, utilities, retail, or any other type of industry, the generic JHA we have for you here today will be of use. Let’s dive in.

Included In The Job Hazard Analysis Checklist

There are three primary phases to a job hazard analysis, as outlined above. However, the concept of the JHA is to identify and record information regarding each process that staff will perform. With this in mind, we’ve created a four-process JHA form to ensure you can efficiently work through your pre-work safety audit with minimal paperwork.

Here’s a preview of the form we’ll provide you with:

The Job Safety Analysis, Activity Hazard Analysis, or Job Hazard Analysis (use whichever term you prefer) needs completion before work commencing on the job site. With that in mind, we’ve made a JHA checklist that includes three primary sections:

1. Administrative Details
2. 4 – 3-Step JHA Work Analysis Cards
3. Hazard Communication Sign-Off

Administrative Details

Most JHAs have minimal room for administrative information at the top of the forms. It might seem efficient at first, but what happens when a JHA checklist needs retrieval at a later date? If the Job Hazard Analysis Checklist were missing vital information, retrieval would be pointless.

Included in the administrative details section is another convenient feature: a text box to include page numbers. We know as well as you do that your staff has multiple on-site duties, and a proper safety audit is likely to require multiple forms for completion. This way, you’ll keep your reports in order and organized.

4 – 3-Step JHA Work Analysis Cards

At the heart of this comprehensive safety analysis report is the three-stage inspection style JHA cards. Both the OSHA and the CCOHS follow a similar format, and both are sure to appreciate the details of this Job Hazard Analysis Checklist. So no matter the country, this generic card format is sure to be a hit with your inspectors, safety, and management teams alike.

Included in each card is a three-tier approach: task, hazard, control. Each section has two checklists to help create a fast snapshot of the vital information you want to get from the JHA report, speeding up time and communications efficiency.

Hazard Communication Sign-Off

No safety report would be complete without an official sign-off point. This sign-off area allows for verification of safety and hazard issues investigated within the job site safety audit. Upon completing the Job Hazard Analysis Checklist, your analyst can get the report to the right people and ensure that the report has had the right eyes on it, verified via a signature.

How To Use The Job Hazard Analysis Checklist

In case the use of this JHA is unclear, or perhaps if you’ve skipped through the section on what’s included, then allow us to demonstrate the primary use of this Job Hazard Analysis Checklist.

1. Begin by downloading the JHA Checklist.
2. Print the checklist as many times as you require.
3. Disseminate the checklist copies to your job site analysts.
4. Train your analysts on best practices for completion.

The JHA intends to collect information regarding the hazards at a job site before work beginning. The concept is preventive safety and is a vital component of any robust health and safety program. The Job Hazard Analysis is not only essential to on and off-site worker safety, but it’s also vital for documentation of compliance, making it a win-win for your business.

Here are a few tricks for proper use that you can train your analysts to comply with:

1. Complete every page in its entirety.
2. Each JHA Checklist has 4-cards to document four processes at the worksite. Complete each of the four cards in its entirety for singly work processes.
3. Keep the report simple. In complex process applications, break the processes down into minor components and use more cards (more sheets) as required.
4. Plan and map out the route of the job hazard analysis and pre-determine the number of processes. This way, the correct number of cards and sheets will find their way into the analyst’s hands.
5. Have the staff on-site perform the task as they would usually and have your analyst observe for regularly performed jobs and processes. This methodology works well to obtain comprehensive information about the job task, process, and applicable hazards. 

Benefits Of Thorough Job Hazard Audit

Although we can ascertain that preventive measures to mitigate or remove the risk of workplace hazards have its obvious and potentially life-saving benefits, there are a number of other less obvious benefits to a thorough activity hazard analysis.

A thorough investigation of the operations processes within an organization can do a lot more than reveal hazards. A thorough job hazard audit can reveal weaknesses in a process that can have the potential to rectify other issues within the process.

Take an inefficiency within a construction site process as an example. Perhaps staff piled one of the much-needed materials in an unsafe manner. They happened to do it in a way that decreased efficiency, like on the other side of a large pile of materials one would have to navigate to obtain the distinct parts required.

Noting hazards and observing processes has a way of revealing inefficiencies within the process that allow your analyst to report back to management. It effectively allows you to increase your organization’s return from the labor involved to perform a thorough investigation. You may find it more than worth the time spent if a process inefficiency winds up being corrected because of it.

Job safety analysis (job hazard analysis) has a way of helping organize processes and procedures also. It may be helpful for various reasons, including job responsibility management, process management, and task documentation for training. 

With a concise JHA, a manager can draw vital information about worker processes and create role or responsibility manuals and guidelines. This documentation can help grow a business, further staff training, and eventually, help to train the safety analysts who will perform future audits.

Increasing Job Safety Analysis Efficiency

In an effort to further drive efficiency to your activity hazard analysis process and procedure, we recommend using our downloadable Job Hazard Analysis Checklist. If, however, you find you are printing far too much paper, then give a digital reporting app solution a try.

We’ve worked with multiple companies from the construction industry to utilities to retail, and you wouldn’t believe how much time people waste printing sheets, filing papers, delivering reports, notifying each other of task completion, and more. Every industry is bereft of processes and procedures, and the bigger your business, the more complex those processes are.

Enter the solution: the digital reporting app – 1st Incident Reporting. It may have started with reporting incidents like employee injury reporting or vehicle accident reports. Still, we’ve come a long way and have an extensive library of templates for you to use and customize as your business requires.

There are several ways that a digital solution increases efficiencies within organizations that take advantage of the technological opportunity. These include:

• No more need to print inspection forms
• Instant sharing via cloud-based technology
• Customizable notifications so the right people get notified when you need them to
• Customizable template library of various inspection, audits, checklists, and other forms for your multiple business needs

If you’re ready to take your business reporting efficiency to the next level, give the 1st Incident Reporting app a try – it works on Android, iOS, desktops, laptops, nearly any device. Give 1st Reporting a try today.