clear and present dangers

How a Job Hazard Analysis can enhance worker safety – and your company’s bottom line.

By M. Chris Osment

By now, we’re all pretty much aware of the basic safety and health program paradigm: decide what programs/controls are needed; implement those changes; and periodically evaluate them and update them to reflect new or unforeseen elements of the job. On the surface, it’s a relatively simple recipe. So how do workers seem to constantly come up with new and inventive ways to hurt themselves?

Unfortunately, that’s a question this article can’t answer. However, all is not lost – there is a tool that, properly utilized, can predict and help to avert many potential hazards without requiring an inordinate investment of time and money. This tool is known as a Job Hazard Analysis.

Job Hazard Analyses, or JHAs, are not explicitly required by OSHA or mandated by any law or statute. However, this is much like saying the ability to perform basic mathematic calculations isn’t required for an engineering course. Best safety practices and many OSHA standards imply the need for at least a rudimentary JHA. In fact, even if you’ve never heard of a job hazard analysis, you’re almost certain to have performed a basic or rudimentary JHA while working on your organization’s safety and health program.

If you closely consider the basic safety paradigm outlined in the first paragraph, you should begin to see a fundamental problem – namely, hazard identification ends up getting shortchanged. In fact, following this pattern exclusively leads to a purely reactionary, rather than proactive, safety environment, and instead of predicting and averting problems, you end up investigating accidents after the fact. This is a serious flaw, as properly identifying safety and health hazards is perhaps the single most critical element in preventing accidents and injuries.

A Job Hazard Analysis is the ultimate answer to the “How do I identify all the hazards I need to deal with?” question. Simply put, a JHA starts with a job classification and identifies the duties required of workers in that classification. Next comes the hard part – a “laundry list” is created noting all the ways a worker can be injured while performing those duties, ideally while observing the duties being performed. The final piece of the JHA puzzle is identifying control measures for these hazards. The following sections will examine each of these elements in greater detail.

Step One – “Role” Call
While JHAs are not terribly complicated or time intensive, the prospect of performing one for every position in your organization can be intimidating. Take heart, and consider the old adage about how to best eat an elephant: one bite at a time.

Start by making a list of every single job classification in your facility, from production to housekeeping to management and everything in between. Once you have an exhaustive list, check to see what classes (if any) can be combined – for instance, receptionists, secretaries and “office-bound” management types can often be lumped into an “Administrative/Clerical” category. Note that this grouping should not include, for instance, a vice president who spends 95 percent of his or her time behind a desk and 5 percent “on the floor” (assuming the other clerical positions spend all of their time “in the office”). That 5 percent will include hazards not faced by any of the other office personnel.

Once you have all of your JHA classifications identified, sort them by relative hazard levels – for instance, High, Medium and Low. Then pick an order in which you want to perform your JHAs, bearing in mind that positions with similar duties can sometimes be evaluated simultaneously, as they will face many of the same hazards. Set up a tentative schedule for evaluating these positions; generally, you should try to work from the most hazardous areas to those with fewer opportunities for accidents/injuries.

Finally, design a basic template for your Job Hazard Analysis data (see Figure 1). Each job class identified using the methods outlined above should get its own “JHA form.” While data can be collected using pen and paper, organizing your findings is best done on a computer. While there are many “JHA assistant” software titles available, a basic spreadsheet program can serve as an ideal JHA tool; a decent word processor will work as well.

Step Two – That’s not in my job description!
Now you’re ready to determine all the basic tasks a worker in a particular classification is asked to perform. While you may think you’re familiar enough with the position(s) in question to determine these tasks without direct observation, this is not a recommended approach. Few of us can exercise perfect recall, some workers may employ methods for accomplishing a given task, and some facets of the job may have changed subtly (or perhaps not so subtly) from your experience or recollection.
Start by talking to a supervisor and getting a basic rundown of the general tasks – for instance, using forklifts or gantries to maneuver forms, dispensing concrete, quality control testing, etc. Then talk to a couple of the workers to see if they have anything to add. Once you have a breakdown of the general job duties, observe the workers performing these tasks, and note the individual steps involved: What equipment is used? Is material handling required? Extensive or repetitive motions? Working from elevations?

In many cases you will have to observe workers on several different occasions or throughout the day to determine everything they do. Also, it is very important to stress to employees that your observations are not meant to intimidate anyone – workers should be urged to complete their jobs as they normally would so you can get an accurate assessment of their duties. You may even decide it is best to observe workers who do not know they are being watched.

Step Three – How did that happen?
Next comes the most critical part of the process – identifying the hazards associated with each identified action. There are four key sources for obtaining this information: personal knowledge/experience, watching employees at work, talking to the workers and their supervisors, and doing a bit of research.

• What you know: For each duty or action identified in Step Two, jot down the potential hazards that are obvious or apparent to you. If you aren’t sure whether something applies, write it down anyway – you will have a chance to strike it from the list later.

• What you see: Once again, watch workers going about their duties, and make a note of every conceivable way one could get hurt or have an incident while performing these duties. If you prefer, this section can be completed while you’re observing employees as part of Step Two; be aware, however, that should you choose to do so, you must be careful not to put too much concentration into hazard identification and over-generalizing job duties. In many cases, it’s a good idea to break the worker observation into two separate segments.

• What you hear: Your next step should be to talk to workers and supervisors to determine what they see as the hazards present in their jobs. Prompt them to offer any examples. It is often productive to do this in a small-group setting – get a supervisor and three to five workers together and let them “feed” off each other. Be sure to go over the list you’ve developed so far, and get their input on what you’ve already come up with.

• What you read: While not absolutely essential, you may find it useful to review industry accident/injury figures and your organization’s loss reports. The latter is simple: pull your accident/injury reports and record the hazards identified as responsible for or contributing to the incident. You should go back three to four years unless your facility has undergone a major revamping that significantly impacted your operations.

To review accident/injury figures for your industry in the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics maintains a database that can prove helpful. Before you start, you will probably want to determine the SIC code for the position(s) you’re working with (for a list of SIC codes, visit http://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/sicsearch.html – precast plants are in category 3272). Note that this is not always the same as the precast concrete industry code – for instance, if you have employees whose primary job function is driving trucks for product delivery/moving, you would want one of the Transportation codes to determine common sources of injuries for that job code.

Step Four – Keeping “that” from happening again.
Finally, the “problem-solving” part of the equation: For each hazard identified in Step Three, list the control(s) you have implemented or will implement to abate these hazards. Note that many times, the controls will be repetitive, and in a few cases, your control measures may seem silly.

Assume, for instance, your company had experienced four instances of workers falling down and sustaining minor injuries while moving from point A to point B. An evaluation of footwear, floor surface, lighting, noise and maintenance uncovered nothing that seemed to contribute to the problem. By appearances, they were just freak accidents. While it might be tempting to skip noting this as a hazard, don’t give in; instead, list it as a hazard, discuss the matter at a safety meeting, and list the control as “Awareness Training.” Drill workers and supervisors to watch and be aware of their movements, and see if any subtle factor reveals itself to be involved. Even if these were just freak occurrences, you’ll (a) have made a positive step by raising awareness among your workers, and (b) have an answer for any safety inspector or insurance/loss control agent who might have questions about the incident(s).
Once you’ve completed this step, you’re ready to collate all the information you’ve collected and revise and produce a completed Job Hazard Analysis. A sample portion of a completed JHA appears in this pdf.

What next?
A completed Job Hazard Analysis serves two important purposes. First, it is a valuable roadmap or recipe for the implementation of hazard controls and safety program/training. Second, it can enhance revenues in several different ways – fewer accidents/injuries, lower insurance premiums, workers’ compensation credits, and increased employee productivity/morale, to name a few.
It is important to note that JHAs should be regarded as living documents – it is inevitable that hazards you didn’t foresee will crop up, or new duties or equipment changes will necessitate changes to a position’s JHA. For this reason, your JHA should bear revision dates, and copies should go to supervisors and managers as well as your safety and health library. Above all, make sure everyone is aware that suggestions about the Job Hazard Analysis are requested and welcome. It’s a win-win situation – they get a safer workplace, and your life is made that much easier. Who can argue with that?

Additional Reading/Resources
OSHA’s JHA guide: http://www.osha.gov/Publications/osha3071.pdf

JHA info at Canadian Center for
Occupational Health and Safety:
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/job-haz.html

Useful forms & data at Seton Resource Center: http://www.setonresourcecenter.com/safety/jha/