Crafting a comprehensive Job Safety Analysis (JSA) results in incredible benefits, beyond achieving job site compliance.

Completing a Job Safety Analysis (also referred to as a Job Hazard Analysis) involves the observance or review of a common workplace activity, noting the individual hazards involved in each step of the job, and developing preventative measures to address these risks.

It’s easy to disregard Job Safety Analysis exercises as nothing more than a chore to obtain compliance. This misconception could not be further from the truth. Job Safety Analysis provides a variety of opportunities for onsite teams and management to review job hazards, discuss preventative methods, and better understand what is expected of teams on the job site.

Ready to bolster your team’s safety? Here are three reasons your team should prioritize its Job Safety Analysis:

1. Increase communication and understanding
Job Safety Analysis observation presents an organic opportunity to increase communication and understanding between onsite teams and management. Often times, back-office management teams and safety committees are tasked with developing the very programs that impact field teams daily – with sometimes little to no input from onsite personnel. Task observations performed during a Job Safety Analysis provides the perfect platform for management to observe the intricacies and hazards of job site tasks, while better understanding the responsibilities of field teams. These exercises initiate more regular contact and communication between management and field workers (who might otherwise rarely interact).

2. Identify undetected hazards and encourage a proactive workforce
Completing a Job Safety Analysis helps keep your team safe. It’s easy to sweep the abstract concept of ‘danger’ under the rug, but when these risks are well defined, teams are more inclined to take them seriously. The discoveries and resulting safety protocol of a JSA provides a roadmap to navigating the common hazards of a job site – some of which field teams might not have even been aware of. By making the preventative measures resulting from a JSA accessible and commonplace, teams can better understand the risks of their responsibilities, as well as the importance of the safety measures enforced onsite.

3. Define benchmarks for health and safety inspections
The conclusions of a JSA can also help provide standards for regular health and safety inspections. For example, if a Job Safety Analysis concluded that roadside teams were at risk working close to traffic, a preventative measure of cones and proper signage might be made required. During a safety inspection if these cones and proper signage are missing, the issue can be rapidly documented and addressed before an incident occurs onsite. This guidance not only keeps teams safer, but also helps supervisors ensure job sites remain compliant.

A critical step in strengthening your Job Safety Analysis practice is the creation of flexible, accessible documentation. When relying on paper forms to capture and deliver important job safety information, inaccurate data, missing information, and long delays are commonplace. By digitizing your forms for use on phones, tablets, and computers, job safety analysis information can be easily input and accessed in real-time. Using dynamic, digital fields, mobile Job Safety Analysis forms can host a variety of data types inaccessible via paper forms. For example, digital JSA documents can capture Images of job hazards, precise locations via GPS, and Signatures authorizing the exercise has been completed.

Leveraging Automated Workflows, frequently completed tasks like form delivery, form Tagging, and uploads to integrated platforms (like Procore, Salesforce, ServiceMax, Box and more) can be completed instantaneously.

To learn more about improving job site safety with mobile forms, check out How GoFormz Mobile Forms Improve Compliance.