Prevent Workplace Hazards With a Job Safety Analysis

Do you know what the hazards are in your workplace? Do you know how to guard against those hazards? A Job Safety Analysis (JSA) is one of the best ways to identify workplace hazards and the controls to guard against them. A JSA can be broken down into four key components: 1) Determine the task to analyze; 2) Break the task into steps; 3) Identify the hazards; and 4) Identify solution and controls.

First, determine which tasks or operations have the most serious potential for harm to the worker and/or the facility. Work with your safety committee or have a department group meeting to brainstorm potential accidents, or exposures associated with tasks performed at your workplace. Those tasks with the highest risk should be analyzed first. Another way to determine the task to analyze is to review incident reports and near misses.

Once the task to analyze is selected, break it down into specific steps. Interview the employees performing the task, then observe them performing the task. The operator or bench worker needs to be part of the JSA process. (It is important to remind the employee that only the task is being analyzed and not their performance.) It is also a good idea to include more than one employee during your analysis, as other roles can bring different perspectives to the table; e.g. a facilities person, a chemist, or an engineer outside of that department can be very valuable in the review/dissection process. The idea is to assemble a team of people who can bring different areas of expertise to review the chemical, the process, or the task in question. Again, it is paramount to have the people who carry out the work involved in the entire JSA.

The third step is to review the tasks and identify hazards. Think about what could go wrong and how it could go wrong. What would be the consequence if something were to go wrong? Any hazard that poses an immediate threat to an employee's life or health must be immediately addressed. Finally, identify solutions and controls to safeguard against the hazards identified. Controls include engineering controls, administrative controls, and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

After the initial JSA has been prepared, there is still one important step: sit with the staff who work with this hazard to review and discuss the analysis. Use the JSA as a training tool and encourage a cooperative spirit. It is not enough to perform the analysis and provide solutions -- the JSA must be documented and periodically reviewed for continuous improvement. Revisit the JSA periodically and see if the recommendations indeed work and/or if there is new information. It could be, for instance, that the JSA was done with right-handed people and a new hire is left-handed!

Safety Partners, Inc. has performed many Job Safety Analyses and is available to perform a JSA at your workplace.

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Safety Partners efficiently and cost-effectively implements hands-on environmental, health, and safety (EHS) programs at emerging life sciences companies. Safety Partners tailors its programs to each client's unique science, processes, procedures, and facilities, while reducing program implementation burdens. Its expertise is unmatched, clocking over 85,000 hours at over 120 New England life sciences firms.