Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) is very useful to identify potential hazards and control it. But pushing too much JHA for getting done - it disqualifies main purpose of JHA. I know one Company that recommends their employees “Do JHA on every high risk jobs”. Yes it takes approx. 30min to discuss within group members, break the basic steps, identify/control hazards and write it down on template and they do it at least 3 times a day. But every quarter of year, they have at least one injury. When employees tired of it, they write only 3 steps on it:
- Start the job – Prepare tools, workplace and permits.
- Do the job – wear PPE, consider safety and toolbox meeting.
- Finish the job – clean workplace and report to Supervisor.
No breaking the steps or identified unique hazards as per task, just to fill the template in easiest way as possible due to recommendation of Area Supervisor “Better than nothing” – it’s waste of production time and paper.
How to prevent this failure:
- Take 5 tells when to do JHAs. We recommend JHA on 5 certain cases of our TAKE 5’s 10 questions when ticked YES. Result is weekly 20-30 (incomplete) JHAs dropped to 5-10 JHAs (full written, competed) at Service and Warehouse Departments in 2013.
- New task and non-routine jobs with high risks or if there is no Safe Work Procedure (SWP), JHA can be made. For instance: If Company has SWP “Grinder use” and everyone aware about SWP, there is no need to write JHA on how to use Grinder every day before using it.
- If new task is frequently occurred, Area Supervisor and his employee may write SWP on this task based on previous JHAs and prevent to re-writing same JHAs again and again. SWP must be reviewed by HSE staff and familiarized to employees at area. For instance: When mobile crane arrives at Warehouse, our employees used to write JHA to unload or load the container. They created own SWP which was reviewed HSE and approved by Director. Then Area Supervisor made SWP training for employees according to it (about risks and its control actions), so there is no need to write JHA on this task again unless job is not modified.
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Ganjiguur Bukhbat
TheSafetyPoster.com
