Job Safety AnalysisJSA

A Job Safety Analysis is a step-by-step breakdown of a task that identifies the hazards at each step and the controls that neutralise them. It is functionally equivalent to a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) — the term JSA is common in Australian and Canadian workplaces, JHA in US OSHA contexts — and the output is always the same written document: the task broken into steps, the hazard at each step, and the recommended control. It is the pre-task control for work that is not routine enough to have a permit but hazardous enough to need a plan, and completion before high-risk work is a standard procedural requirement.

The value of a JSA is that it forces the crew to name the hazard before the work, not after. A task that names pinch points as a hazard and gloves and guard as a control is a task the crew has thought about; a task with no JSA is a task the crew is improvising. The discipline that makes it work is the same as the pre-task plan: the JSA is completed at the workface, by the crew doing the work, signed before the first step, and revisited when the conditions change. A QEHS platform holds the JSA against the task and the location, links each control to the hierarchy of controls, and feeds completion into the leading-indicator dashboard. See JHA, permit to work, and the hierarchy of controls.