Hazard Identification and Job Analysis
Key Takeaways
- Hazard identification should cover routine, nonroutine, emergency, maintenance, and contractor work.
- Job hazard analysis breaks a task into steps, identifies hazards at each step, and selects controls before work begins.
- Checklists, inspections, worker interviews, observations, incident reviews, and exposure data provide different hazard signals.
- A useful hazard analysis focuses on what can cause harm, who is exposed, and how controls will be verified.
Hazard identification starts before the event
A hazard is a source or situation with potential to cause injury, illness, property damage, environmental harm, or other loss. Hazard identification is the disciplined search for those sources before people are harmed. It includes physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic, psychosocial, energy, environmental, and organizational contributors.
Do not limit hazard identification to routine production. Many serious exposures occur during setup, cleaning, line clearing, maintenance, troubleshooting, startup, shutdown, contractor work, emergency response, and changes in equipment or materials. A workplace that looks controlled during normal operation may be far more hazardous when a guard is removed, a valve is opened, or an employee reaches into a jammed machine.
A job hazard analysis, often called JHA or job safety analysis, breaks a job into steps, identifies hazards for each step, evaluates exposure, and selects controls. The best JHAs are built with people who know the task, then verified by observing actual work. A JHA copied from another site without field review can miss layout, equipment, staffing, climate, communication, and maintenance differences.
| Hazard-finding method | What it is good for | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Worker interview | Finds informal workarounds and practical concerns | Needs trust and follow-up observation |
| Field observation | Shows actual task flow and exposure points | Observer may miss rare nonroutine steps |
| Checklist inspection | Prompts review of known requirements | Can miss unusual hazards not on the list |
| Incident and near-miss review | Reveals failure patterns and weak controls | Reacts to events that already occurred |
| Exposure or monitoring data | Quantifies noise, air, heat, or other agents | Requires correct sampling strategy |
| Procedure review | Finds gaps between written and actual work | Paper review alone is not enough |
A JHA should not become a paperwork exercise. Each step should be specific enough to reveal hazards. For example, clean tank is too broad. More useful steps include isolate equipment, verify zero energy, open access point, test atmosphere, ventilate, enter, remove residue, and exit. Each step can have different hazards and controls.
The hazard description should name the harmful mechanism. Instead of poor housekeeping, write slip hazard from oil on walking surface near press. Instead of chemical hazard, name solvent vapor inhalation during open-container transfer. Specific hazards lead to specific controls and better quiz answers.
Risk thinking begins during hazard identification. Ask who is exposed, how often, for how long, under what conditions, and with what severity if controls fail. Include employees, temporary workers, contractors, visitors, maintenance personnel, emergency responders, and nearby operations. Also ask whether existing controls are engineered, administrative, PPE-based, informal, missing, or defeated.
For ASP exam scenarios, the strongest next step is often to observe the task, involve affected workers, break it into steps, identify hazards and controls, then verify implementation. Less defensible answers jump directly to discipline, generic retraining, or PPE without understanding the task.
A practical JHA workflow is:
- Select the job based on risk, frequency, change, or incident history.
- Involve workers and supervisors familiar with the task.
- Break the job into clear steps.
- Identify hazards and exposure at each step.
- Choose controls using the hierarchy of controls.
- Communicate, train, and verify the revised method.
- Review after changes, incidents, or field feedback.
Which description is most useful in a job hazard analysis?
A task has never caused a recordable injury, but workers report frequent near misses during jam clearing. What should the safety professional do?
What is the best reason to involve workers in a JHA?