A job safety analysis breaks a task into steps, identifies the hazards in each, and sets the controls before work starts. How to run a JSA, a worked example, and how it relates to a job hazard analysis and a risk assessment.
A job safety analysis (JSA) is a short, task-level review completed before a job starts: break the work into steps, identify what could hurt someone at each step, and agree the controls that will prevent it. It is also called a job hazard analysis (JHA), and in some industries a task hazard analysis or pre-task plan. Where a site risk assessment looks at the operation as a whole, a job safety analysis looks at this crew, doing this task, today — which is why it is filled in at the work location rather than in the office.
A JSA with "be careful" as a control is not a JSA. Every control should be something a supervisor could check was in place — a lock fitted, a barrier erected, a hoist used.
Job safety analysis and job hazard analysis describe the same method; the names differ by company and regulator, with JHA common in OSHA guidance. A risk assessment is broader: it covers an activity or workplace, rates likelihood and severity, and is reviewed periodically. The JSA sits underneath it, translating the general controls into specific steps for one task. On construction projects, the JSA often complements a method statement, which describes how the work will be done rather than what could go wrong at each step.
The weak point of most JSA programmes is completion: forms signed in the canteen, copied from yesterday, never reviewed. Ettex Forms moves the JSA to a phone or tablet at the work location — the crew picks the task, adds steps and hazards, every member signs, and the supervisor gets the completed form with a timestamp and photos. Reusable templates for common tasks keep the good analyses alive, while requiring the crew to confirm site-specific conditions each time.
JSA stands for job safety analysis: a step-by-step review of a task to identify hazards and set controls before the work begins.
The crew doing the work, led by the supervisor or person in charge. The people doing the task know its hazards best, and signing it makes the controls a shared commitment.
An activity hazard analysis (AHA) is the equivalent document required on US Army Corps of Engineers and many federal projects. It follows the same logic — steps, hazards, controls — with added fields for equipment, inspections and training.
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