A job hazard analysis, also called a job safety analysis or JSA, takes one job and asks what can go wrong at each step before anyone gets hurt. This free JHA checklist is for supervisors, EHS managers and safety coordinators at US workplaces who analyze jobs the way OSHA’s booklet Job Hazard Analysis (OSHA 3071) describes. One run is one job or task. It chooses and prioritizes the job, brings in the workers who do it and reviews its injury history, breaks the job into steps, and identifies the hazards at each step: what can go wrong, the consequences, how it could arise and how likely it is. It then works down the hierarchy of controls, takes the draft back to workers, records the supervisor’s approval, and trains everyone on the new procedure before setting the next review. A specialist review phase appears for jobs that could kill or disable someone or have caused a recordable injury, and a task to link work permits appears when a step needs one.
OSHA’s booklet Job Hazard Analysis (OSHA 3071) describes a JHA as a technique that focuses on job tasks as a way to identify hazards before they occur. It looks at the relationship between the worker, the task, the tools and the work environment. You watch the job, list its steps, ask what can go wrong at each one, and then eliminate or reduce each uncontrolled hazard to an acceptable level. The booklet calls the JHA one component of a wider safety and health management system, and it is also called a job safety analysis (JSA).
That makes it narrower and deeper than the documents around it. A workplace risk assessment covers a whole site or activity, and a safety audit or a manufacturing safety inspection checks that controls are in place across an area. A JHA takes one job, such as loading a trailer or changing a die, and turns it into a safe, written way of doing that job. Where a step needs energy isolated, the lockout/tagout checklist applies the machine’s procedure on the day.
Asks: what can go wrong at each step of this job, how bad, how likely, and which controls stop it?
When: for high-risk, new or changed jobs first, then again after an injury, a close call or a change.
Output: the step list, the hazards and controls, an approved job procedure and trained workers.
Asks: what could harm people anywhere in this workplace, who might be harmed, and what more should be done?
When: for a new workplace or activity, after a significant change, and at the review date.
Output: significant findings and an action plan, which may name jobs that need a JHA.
Asks: are the guards fitted, the aisles marked, the PPE worn and the records current?
When: daily to yearly, area by area.
Output: defects and corrective actions; a job that keeps producing findings is a candidate for a JHA.
Eight phases take one job from selection to a trained crew, in the order OSHA’s booklet sets out. Phase 6 appears only when the job could cause death or a disabling injury, or has caused a recordable injury or illness, and a task to link work permits appears when a step needs one.
OSHA’s booklet gives priority to the jobs most likely to hurt someone and the jobs that could hurt someone worst. One run analyzes one job, defined tightly enough that you can watch a worker do it from start to finish.
OSHA lists involving employees as the first step. The people who do the job know where it goes wrong, and they are more likely to use controls they helped choose.
Watch the job being done and list each step as the worker takes it. OSHA warns against a breakdown so detailed that it becomes unnecessarily long, or so broad that it leaves out basic steps.
OSHA calls this detective work. For each step, ask what can go wrong, what the consequences would be, how it could arise, what else contributes and how likely it is, and record the answers in the same way every time.
Work down the hierarchy of controls for each hazard, from elimination to personal protective equipment, and choose the highest control that is feasible. Several controls together are often needed.
Shown only when the job could cause death or a disabling injury, or has caused a recordable injury or illness. A specialist checks the hazards and controls before the supervisor approves the analysis.
OSHA’s booklet says to discuss the recommendations with all employees who perform the job and consider their responses carefully. Nobody is trained on the new procedure until the supervisor approves it.
Any time you revise a job hazard analysis, OSHA’s booklet says to train all employees affected by the changes in the new methods, procedures or protective measures.
OSHA’s worksheet Identifying Hazard Control Options: The Hierarchy of Controls, from its Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs, ranks controls from most to least effective using the NIOSH hierarchy. Its worked example is a warehouse hazard: a fork truck that struck a pedestrian, where there had been incidents and near misses before. The table below summarizes it. The last column is the part most JHAs leave out: every control can bring a new hazard with it, which Phase 5 checks for.
| Level | What it means | Example from OSHA’s worksheet | New hazard it could create |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elimination | The hazard no longer exists. | Design storage at intersections to remove blind spots; let people into the warehouse only when they are needed and fork trucks are not running; move materials by conveyor or automatic guided vehicle. | People may have to pass through other hazardous areas to take inventory. |
| Substitution | A material or process is changed out for one that is less hazardous. | Replace fork trucks with powered walk-beside forklifts or hand trucks. | More strain on workers’ muscles. |
| Engineering controls | Physical changes that keep the hazard from coming into contact with workers while they still do the job. | Pedestrian aisles, barriers and crossings; mirrors and motion detector alarms at blind corners; fewer access points; a speed limit on fork trucks. | Ladder work to clean the mirrors; pressure to keep up with quotas on slower equipment. |
| Administrative controls: warnings | Signals that tell people a hazard is near. | Warning lights and backup alarms on fork trucks; sensors on trucks or pedestrians. | More noise and alarm fatigue; warnings that do not reach workers with impaired hearing or sight. |
| Administrative controls: procedures and training | Changes to the way the work is done, and training in them. | Forklift training with refreshers; a safe distance around fork trucks; no truck movement 15 minutes before a shift starts, a lunch break or a shift ends; headlights on at all times; blind-spot training for pedestrians and operators. | Distance that makes communication harder; drivers rushing because they have less time to move loads. |
| Personal protective equipment | Clothing and devices that protect the worker. They need constant effort and attention from workers, including proper use and training. | High-visibility vests for workers and visitors. | Loose vests caught by machinery. |
Choose the highest control that is feasible. The worksheet says to choose, with workers, the control that falls highest on the hierarchy, and to use lower ones as interim controls until the permanent solution is in place. Often a combination works best, such as an engineering control backed by training and inspection. OSHA 3071 makes the same point in its Appendix 1: information from a job hazard analysis is useless unless the recommended controls are built into the tasks, and PPE is acceptable when engineering controls are not feasible or do not fully remove the hazard, while they are being developed, when safe work practices do not give enough extra protection, and in emergencies.
Check the standards behind the example. The worksheet is guidance, and its forklift refresher is an example. The powered industrial truck standard, 29 CFR 1910.178(l)(4), requires refresher training when an operator is seen driving unsafely, has an accident or near miss, gets a poor evaluation, is assigned a different type of truck or faces a changed workplace condition, and an evaluation of each operator at least every three years. At a dock, 1910.178(k)(1) requires the brakes of highway trucks to be set and wheel chocks placed under the rear wheels while they are boarded with powered industrial trucks.
The supervisor is chosen on the first task. The approval is assigned to them alone, and nothing in the training phase can be completed until they record a decision on the approval step, with any conditions they set.
Answer that the job could kill or disable someone, or has caused a recordable injury, and a specialist review phase appears before the approval. A step that needs a work permit adds a task to link the permit. The template designer lets you change either rule to fit your site.
The last task sets the review date and the triggers for an earlier one. A recurring schedule starts each job’s review on time, an injury on the job starts a fresh run the same day, and the Reports Grid shows every analysis in progress and the tasks that are overdue.
CheckFlow does not identify hazards or decide which control is good enough. Those judgements are yours and your workers’, recorded in the tables on each task. It runs the analysis around them: who does each step, by when, with what evidence, and who approved the result. CheckFlow’s manufacturing checklist software shows the same approach for safety work on the shop floor.
Assess a whole workplace with the Health & Safety Risk Assessment Checklist, and check controls stay in place with the Safety Audit Checklist or the manufacturing safety inspection. Apply a machine’s energy control procedure with the Lockout/Tagout Checklist, plan what people do when something goes wrong with the Emergency Action Plan Checklist, and record the injuries that start a review with the OSHA Recordkeeping Checklist.
Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) Procedure Checklist
Health & Safety Risk Assessment Checklist
Permit to Work Checklist
Forklift Pre-Use Inspection Checklist
OSHA Recordkeeping (Form 300) Checklist
Describe the process in a sentence and the AI checklist generator drafts the phases and tasks for you.
OSHA’s booklet Job Hazard Analysis (OSHA 3071) describes it as a technique that focuses on job tasks as a way to identify hazards before they occur, looking at the relationship between the worker, the task, the tools and the work environment. You break one job into its steps, identify what can go wrong at each step, and choose controls that eliminate the hazards or reduce them to an acceptable level. The result is a safer way of doing the job, which the booklet says is also useful for training new employees.
In practice there is none: job hazard analysis and job safety analysis are two names for the same method. OSHA’s booklet uses both terms, and OSHA’s Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs mention job hazard analyses and job safety analyses together when they advise reviewing them with workers before nonroutine tasks. Whichever name you use, the method is the same: list the steps, find the hazards at each one, choose the controls and train the workers.
OSHA 3071 presents the JHA as a technique and as one part of a safety and health management system, not as a requirement of its own. Some standards do require related written work. For example, 29 CFR 1910.132(d) requires an assessment of hazards that call for PPE, verified by a written certification, and 29 CFR 1910.146(c)(1) requires employers to evaluate the workplace for permit-required confined spaces. The booklet says to check the standards for your industry, because compliance with them is mandatory. State Plan states may have their own rules.
OSHA’s booklet gives priority to jobs with the highest injury or illness rates; jobs with the potential to cause severe or disabling injuries or illness, even with no history of accidents; jobs where one simple human error could lead to a severe accident or injury; jobs that are new or have changed; and jobs complex enough to need written instructions. It then says to rank them, starting with those most likely to occur and with the most severe consequences.
OSHA’s booklet starts with involving employees, reviewing the accident history, a preliminary job review, and listing and ranking the hazardous jobs. Then you outline the steps by watching the job, identify the hazards at each step, and choose controls. You discuss the recommendations with everyone who does the job, train them in any new procedure, and review the analysis periodically and after an injury or illness. This checklist follows that order and adds the supervisor’s approval before training.
A way of ranking controls from most to least effective. OSHA’s hierarchy of controls worksheet, which follows NIOSH, lists elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls and personal protective equipment. OSHA 3071 gives the same order in three levels: engineering controls, which include eliminating or substituting the hazard, then administrative controls, then PPE. Choose the highest feasible control, use lower ones as interim protection, and expect to combine several.
OSHA’s booklet sets no fixed interval. It says to review the analysis periodically, because a review can find hazards that the first analysis missed even when the job has not changed, and that a review is particularly important after an illness or injury on that job. Whenever you revise it, train every employee affected by the changes. OSHA’s Recommended Practices suggest verifying that controls remain effective at least once a year and when conditions, processes or equipment change.
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