What Is Job Safety Analysis?

A job safety analysis is a step-by-step overview of a specific task in terms of the risks involved and the ways in which those risks can be prevented or mitigated. This is an important undertaking for companies to both reduce the risk of injuries on the job and to improve overall working conditions. In most cases, those performing a job safety analysis produce a document outlining each step used in completing the job and the hazards involved with those steps. The final part of the analysis is determining ways of removing those hazards or, at the very least, making sure the risks are minimized.

Job safety is critical for both employers and employees alike. Companies that don't take the necessary safety precautions run the risk of having employees injured, thus exposing themselves to bad publicity and potential lawsuits. Employers who take on tasks without being aware of the risks involved are putting themselves in potential danger. One way for all involved to avoid these possibilities is to conduct a job safety analysis for all potentially harmful tasks.

There are several different ways for a job safety analysis to be performed. One way would be to observe a person performing a task to note the procedure and potential hazards as they arise. Another way is to gather a group of professionals familiar with the task together to get feedback on the process, thereby allowing for a wide array of viewpoints to enter into the safety discussion.

No matter how the job safety analysis is conducted, it is important that the end result is a detailed document that does not omit any conceivable hazard. Employers must first decide which tasks warrant an analysis. Those tasks that are determined to be potentially hazardous are then broken down into the steps that an employee must take to complete them. For each possible step, the person conducting the analysis must decide what potential safety problems can arise at each step in the process.

The final part of a job safety analysis is to decide upon the preventative measures available to either eliminate the hazards or to at least reduce the possibility of them causing damage. Once these measures are decided upon, the analysis is ready to be put into document form. Most of these documents are set up as a chart listing each step of the process. Alongside of those steps in the document, the hazards associated with them and the measures to combat those hazards are identified.