Free to use
Writing a JHA crews actually use
Most JHAs are written to survive an audit, not to change what happens on the job. You can tell the difference in about ten seconds of reading one.
- Break the job into steps somebody could actually watch happen
- One hazard per line, described as an event and not a category
- Controls that name who does what, not 'be careful'
- Written with the crew, at the tailgate, not the night before
Steps: what a person would see
A good step is something you could stand there and watch: 'set outriggers on cribbing,' 'rig the pump to the hook,' 'guide the load through the deck opening.' A bad step is a phase of work — 'excavation' or 'demolition' — because you can't identify a hazard against something that broad. If a step takes more than about fifteen minutes or involves more than one crew doing different things, split it.
Hazards: describe the event, not the category
'Struck by' is a category. 'Load swings into the crew guiding it through the deck opening' is a hazard, and it tells you what control you need. The test is whether a reasonable person could picture the thing happening. Categories are useful for sorting your data later; they're useless to a laborer standing on the deck.
Controls: name who does what
'Be careful' and 'use proper PPE' are not controls, they're wishes. A control says who does what: tag lines on both ends, handled by two men on the deck, nobody inside the swing radius, spotter with a radio positioned at the opening. If a control doesn't tell somebody what to do differently, it isn't going to change anything. And work down the hierarchy — can you eliminate the hazard or engineer it out before you fall back on PPE and procedure?
Write it with the crew, not for them
A JHA written in the office the night before and handed out at the tailgate is a document. A JHA written in three minutes at the tailgate with the crew adding the two things the office didn't know about is a briefing. Same paperwork, completely different outcome. This is really the whole argument for doing it on a phone in the field — not that it's digital, but that it makes writing it in the moment fast enough to actually do.
The test
Hand your JHA to a laborer who wasn't there when it was written and ask him what he's supposed to do differently today. If he can answer, it's a good JHA. If he shrugs, you have a filing.
Want to see it on your work?
A demo runs about 20 minutes and we'll use your kind of jobs as the example. We'll give you a price on the call.
Book a demo ResourcesSee it on your kind of work
Twenty minutes, your trades, your jobs, and a price on the call.
Book a Demo