The Business of Safety Pt. 1: The Job Hazard Assessment
By Jim Poage
Safety is one of those things that everyone believes in. No one wants to see an employee injured or, worse, killed. The goal of every manager, supervisor, or business owner is to make sure that people go home in the same condition that they were in when they reported to work. This is where the business of safety begins, and it starts with a job hazard assessment.
Safety goes far beyond just telling people to be safe on the job. OSHA says in paragraph 5(a)(1) of the OSHA Act that it is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that the workplace is free of recognized hazards that could cause serious injury or fatalities. That means there are certain steps required by the employer to keep an employee safe and show that the employer is doing the right thing to comply with OSHA regulations. Understanding why accidents happen in the first place is the foundation of any hazard assessment.
What Is a Job Hazard Assessment?
One of these steps is the job hazard assessment. The Job Hazard Assessment is when an employer or safety person observes a job being performed. They record the steps that the employee goes through to complete the task, and document obvious hazards along with actions to take to control the hazard.
While this would seem simple in the beginning, the next steps become a bit more specialized and may require the assistance of a safety professional. Based on the hierarchy of risk control, the employer or their safety person would need to consider what the most effective step would be regarding control of the hazard. Would it be feasible to engineer the hazard out of the task, or eliminate it?
Would it be possible to control the hazard through an administrative control to reduce the exposure to the hazard to a safe level? Or as a last option, would it be acceptable to use personal protective equipment to protect the employee? These are all things that a safety professional can help a manager or employer resolve when looking at the job function.
What a Good Job Hazard Assessment Should Document
A useful job hazard assessment is more than a checklist filled out once and forgotten. To be effective, it should record, at minimum: the specific steps of the task in the order they’re performed, the hazard associated with each step (a fall, a pinch point, an electrical hazard, exposure to chemicals, etc.), the control measure chosen to address that hazard, who is responsible for making sure the control is in place, and how often the assessment will be reviewed or updated.
Jobs change as equipment, crews, and worksites change, so a job hazard assessment that was accurate a year ago may no longer reflect the hazards a crew faces today. Revisiting the assessment whenever a task, tool, or work environment changes is just as important as writing it in the first place.
Training Is Part of the Job Hazard Assessment
Along with identifying the hazards comes training. Employers must train employees on how to recognize the hazard, how to safely work around the hazard, and how to properly protect themselves from the hazard. Once you have identified the hazard, trained your employees regarding the hazard, and provided them with any necessary equipment to do the job safely, you’ve taken the first step in protecting your business and your employees. In Part 2, we explain how to control the hazards you’ve identified using the hierarchy of controls, and in Part 3, we cover how to turn that knowledge into a formal safety procedure.
For more information about the Job Hazard Assessment contact Jim Poage, jimpoage@formetco.com or 678-951-1132.
