Basic Tips for a Job Safety Analysis

Thanks for joining us. In this episode we’ll cover the basic steps to conducting a Job Safety Analysis.

Some type of risk analysis should be performed before every job and should be created by the work group performing the task. A job safety analysis (or JSA) is a procedure that integrates accepted safety and health principles and practices into a particular task or job operation. Its goal is to identify potential hazards and to recommend the safest way to do the job.

Before the JSA takes shape, the job at hand must be selected – and there are several factors and questions that need to be considered when selecting the job.

A good place to start would be to find where accidents occur most frequently – for obvious reasons. Here, consider whether the consequences of an accident, hazardous condition or exposure to harmful substance are potentially severe.

Another hot-bed for accidents is where there is a lack of experience. Do you maybe have a lot of students or new staff who may not be fully trained?

And jobs that are modified or changed, or are not performed, are also vulnerable to accidents – so keep an eye out for these as well.

So after you’ve picked the specific job, a JSA is then completed following three simple steps: 1) Break it down into steps, 2) identify the hazards and 3) determine the preventative measures.

So first, break the job into steps, noting what is done rather than how it’s done. A good thing to remember is that most jobs contain less than 10 steps. These steps should be kept in their correct sequence or any step out of order may miss serious potential hazards or introduce hazards that don’t actually exist. 

Secondly, carefully analyze each task of the job and list the potential health and safety hazards for each based on your observations of the job, knowledge of accident and injury causes, and work experience. Seek the input of the workers who have experience in that job.

The final stage in a JSA is to determine ways to eliminate or control the hazards that have been identified:

To do so, you can eliminate the hazard entirely by choosing a different process, modifying an existing process, improving the environment or changing the hazardous substance or tools being used. If the hazard can’t be eliminated, contain the hazard and avoid contact by using enclosures, machine guards, worker booths or something similar.  

Modifying hazardous work procedures by changing the sequence of steps or adding other steps to the job process is another option.

And lastly, if there are no other possible solutions you can also reduce exposure. These measures are the least effective and should only be used if no other solutions are possible. For example, you can minimize some exposure by providing personal protective equipment. To reduce the severity of an accident, provide emergency facilities such as eyewash stations.

Workers performing the job as well as the supervisor and a representative from the health and safety committee should be involved in conducting the JSA. The more skill and years experience applied to identifying hazards in a job, the safer the job and the employees will be.

For more information, resources and sample JSA forms, please visit www.ccohs.ca and search on “Job Safety Analysis”. Thanks for listening everyone.