Job Safety Analysis

ComplianceQuest Job Safety Analysis

JSA (Job Safety Analysis)

Identify potential hazards in every step of JSA process and recommend the safest way to execute a job

What is Job Safety Analysis?

Job safety analysis (JSA) is a procedure that helps integrate accepted safety and health practices into a particular task or job operation. In JSA, the ultimate goal is to identify potential hazards in every step of a process and recommend the safest way to execute the job. JSA is a written procedure developed to understand, review, minimize or eliminate hazards associated with work processes. A job safety analysis (JSA) must be conducted at the job site before the commencement of a job, or when there has been any modification done to the existing job process. JSA can also include risk assessment to evaluate the hazard occurance probability while also detailing the severity of its consequences, and the effectiveness of the control and preventive measures implemented.

What are the benefits of doing a job safety analysis?

JSA is a written work procedure. While the written JSA serves as a document that can be showcased to OSHA, the documented records of JSA will also help the organization in many ways as it helps create a safe work environment. Simply put, job safety analysis is beneficial to the organization as it —

Helps identify undetected hazards
Increases job knowledge of the participants
Improves safety and health awareness
Enhances communication between supervisors and workers
Promotes better acceptance of revised safe work procedures
Helps complete comprehensive incident investigations
Can be used as a standard for all safety and health inspections or observations
Serves as teaching material during job training or considered a briefing guide for sporadic jobs or processes

There are two main methods to conduct a job safety analysis (JSA). Each method has its benefit.

Observational JSA helps in recognizing and reviewing hazards as the method does not rely on individual memory
Discussion-based JSA between experienced workers and supervisors improves the chances of accepting the new work procedure

What are the four basic steps in job safety analysis?

Job Safety Analysis can be broken down into four stages that helps perform the analysis effectively. JSA is performed in stages as it helps complete every portion of the analysis easily and document the findings meticulously. The four basic stages in conducting a job safety analysis (JSA) are:

While all jobs should undergo JSA, it is cumbersome and time consuming. JSA is also necessary to be performed when there is a change or revision in equipment, process, environment, or raw materials. Hence, it is advisable to select the job for analysis in the order of priority based on the following factors
- The frequency and severity of accidents can help determine the starting point of the analysis
- Potential for illness or injury that involves hazardous conditions or materials
- New jobs that present a higher risk to workers
- Modifications in job procedures
- Non-routine jobs
Break the job down into a series of steps to better analyze the overall risk or hazard associated with each job or process. While breaking down the job, it is imperative to keep the steps in the right sequence as any faults in this stage have the potential to create a new hazard or miss a potentially serious one. In this stage, the person conducting the analysis observes a worker performing the job.
Examine and identify potential hazards through a series of questions. It is important to note that at this stage it is all about identifying potential hazards and not solving them. To do so, the observer can ask questions to the workers to make fair and relevant observations. During this stage, the observer must make a note of all the observations of the job, including knowledge of injury or incident and its causes, and a list of potential risks and hazards based on personal experience.
Determine preventive measures to remedy identified hazards
- Use different techniques to elimination the hazard. The techniques can be anything from switching to a different process, substituting material with less hazardous options, modifying an existing process, implementing modifications to work environment, replace or modify existing tools.
- Containment is one of the preventive measures recommended if the hazard cannot be eliminated. Organizations can implement enclosures, install worker booths, or build machine guards to contain the severity of both existing and potential hazards.
- Work procedure revision by adding additional steps or implementing modifications to steps that are hazardous can improve the safety of the work environment and protect the workers.
- Minimize employee exposure to hazardous environments and materials to improve the severity of an accident, reduce fatalities, and promote safety. This can be achieved by implementing and training employees with preventive measures.

4 Important steps in Job Safety Analysis - JSA

How to identify potential hazards during job safety analysis?

There are different types of hazards: biological, chemical, ergonomic, physical, psychosocial, and safety. The primary objective of hazard identification is to find and record potential hazards that affect the workplace’s safety standards. To identify the hazards at the workplace during Job Safety Analysis (JSA), follow any of these methods

Walk around the workplace to identify and understand processes and activities
Deliberately observe certain work activities to grasp the tasks
Engage actively with the employees to understand their line of thought
Peruse previous accident records to get insight into the existing problems
Gather records related to absenteeism in the workplace due to the work environment
Focus on workers and processes during after hours
Research manufacturer’s guidance to ensure adherence
Review existing operational procedures and work instructions
Ensure compliance with regulatory standards and guidance
Conduct service and maintenance for existing procedures and equipment

Breakdown of the job safety analysis

Before conducting JSA, appropriate training is necessary to understand the task’s competency and the risk associated with the assessment. Once the supervisor has the necessary knowledge and training, job safety analysis (JSA) can be carried out in five steps

Document the process activity, step-by-step
Identify hazards and potential injuries related to each task
Document control measures to minimize or eliminate the risk of injury
Delegate the responsibility to implement control measures
Constantly monitor and review hazards and risks

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OSHA information on job safety analysis

The basic principle of JSA is to break down the work into individual tasks and analyze each task for potential safety risks or hazards. Hearing protection, fall protection, and other special types of personal protective equipment are covered under other sections of OSHA standards. OSHA requires a written certification that the hazard assessment has been performed. JSA also includes property damage and product quality.

CQ’s Workplace Safety for Work.com Solution

With CQ’s Workplace Safety for Work.com Solution organizations can now combine safety management methodology with robust technology that will provide a platform to collect, collate and trend health and safety data to the health and well-being of staff, clients, contractors, or the community. The Workplace Safety for Work.com

Is a highly flexible and configurable solution that can be tailored to meet the workplace safety needs
Can be implemented rapidly to receive time to value
Provides management peace of mind knowing the workplace is safe for employees, customers, and suppliers
Helps protect the brand by embracing safety-first culture

Some of the features include

Facility inspection – Define the schedule, checklists, and assess the type and level of safe activity for specific locations.
Injury and illness reporting – Ensure workers have access to report events, illness, or hazards.
PPE management – Track and manage PPE inventory.
Return to work – Record and manage the information and approvals for employees to get back to work.
Safety observations – Allow workers to report the positive or negative observations.
Hazard analysis – Manage and record information to effectively understand and manage risk.
Stop work authority – Record a Stop Work Order and manage the risk to return to operations.
Safety notifications – chatter – Improve Health and Safety communication between workers and transparency.
Analytics and dashboards – Know what the risks are, know what is been done about them; and prove it.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who conducts job safety analysis?

While job safety analysis is traditionally performed by safety technicians, production leads, and production workers, front-line production workers primarily conduct JSA as they have the training and experience that is needed to conduct a successful job safety analysis.

When should an organization conduct job safety analysis?

job safety analysis is a tried and true method that helps identify and reduce the risk associated with workplace hazards. Job Safety Analysis must be conducted across all work processes. However, practical constraints such as time and effort restrict the jobs that get prioritized for JSA. JSA should be carried out when

The potential for injury or illness is high
A human error could result in severe injury or accident
There is a need to interact with multiple people or systems
The job is complex and difficult to perform without written instruction
Any and all tasks have safety concerns
New jobs or existing jobs have undergone any procedural or process changes
Jobs have the potential to cause injuries or illness that could be severe or disabling
New tools or machinery are introduced

How can CQ’s Workplace Safety for Work.com Solution?

The Workplace safety app focuses on safety, risk management, and compliance. Rely on the Workplace Safety app to manage all key safety and business alerts

Each user can understand how the business is doing with respect to illnesses, injuries from daily operations, and key action items that require follow-up for corrective actions and tasks
The app allows the creation of inspection programs that can be used to schedule workplace safety inspections at intervals based on risk to the site. Using the program, recurring inspection tasks can be generated that will automatically reflect in the assignee’s task list
Use any device such as desktop, tablet, or mobile device to complete inspection checklists, report injuries, illnesses, or manage incidents as and when they occur
Improve response to incidents and create corrective actions to address incidents as they occur and prevent recurrences

Some of the features of the Workplace Safety app listed below.

Focused on People Safety, the app allows employers to manage both current and emerging hazards for workers, suppliers, contractors, clients, and the community.
A robust Safety Risk Management platform that allows collection and analysis of information from operations to understand the root cause of potential and existing hazards and manage the risk.
Management tools that give safety managers and HR the right information at their fingertips to better manage the staff returning after illness or injury.
Improve facility compliance by using the right tools to schedule consistent inspections that ensure the safety of the workforce and quality of operations.
Eliminate the guesswork out of decision-making with analytics that offers real-time data and metrics across the organization.

Using the command center, leaders can use the key indicators to support the next best actions that need to be taken to protect the health and safety of the workers which also managing operational capacity. The application has the capability to

Maintain safe workplaces with safety inspections
Manage worker health and safety
Offer continuous improvement for site safety
Keep teams informed and connected