JHA, JSA, AHA — same animal
Job hazard analysis and job safety analysis are two names for the same document, and the argument about which term is correct has wasted more safety-meeting minutes than any hazard ever did. The Army Corps of Engineers calls it an activity hazard analysis (AHA) on its projects. Whatever the header says, the structure is identical: one job, broken into steps, with hazards and controls mapped to each step. OSHA's own guidance publication uses "job hazard analysis," so that is the term used here.
Does OSHA require a JHA?
Not by that name — no standard says "perform a job hazard analysis" in those words. Several standards get there anyway. For most employers the obligation arrives through PPE: 29 CFR 1910.132(d) requires you to assess the workplace for hazards that require personal protective equipment and to certify that assessment in writing, identifying the workplace evaluated, the person certifying, and the date. A JHA is the natural way to produce that certification. Hazard-analysis duties also appear in permit-required confined spaces [1910.146], process safety management [1910.119], and the general duty to furnish a workplace free of recognized hazards [OSH Act §5(a)(1)].
And in practice the question is moot: general contractors and host employers require task-level JHAs before mobilization regardless of what OSHA says. If you bid work, you write JHAs.
Anatomy of a JHA
Pick the job. Start where the injuries are: tasks with the highest injury or near-miss frequency, tasks where one mistake is catastrophic, jobs that are new or recently changed, and complex jobs performed rarely enough that nobody remembers them well.
Break it into steps. Six to ten, in order, written while watching the person who actually does the job. Not the training-video version — the real one, including the part where they balance on the bumper.
Name the hazards in each step. Be specific about what could go wrong and the energy behind it: stored pressure, suspended load, rotating parts, gravity, electricity. "Be careful" is not a hazard; "stored pneumatic energy in the tire can separate the rim explosively" is.
Assign controls down the hierarchy. Elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, PPE — in that order of preference. If your control column reads "PPE, PPE, PPE, be careful," you haven't analyzed the job; you've narrated it.
Worked example 1: changing a truck tire in a shop
Tire servicing looks routine and has killed experienced mechanics — multi-piece rim separation during inflation is the classic event, which is why OSHA wrote a standard specifically for servicing rim wheels [29 CFR 1910.177]. Note how the controls lean on engineering (cage, clip-on chuck) before PPE.
JHA: Changing a truck tire in a shop
| # | Job step | Hazards | Controls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Position the vehicle and chock the wheels | Vehicle movement or rollaway; traffic moving through the bay | Level surface; parking brake set; wheel chocks on the opposite axle, both directions; cones or a barrier if the bay sees traffic |
| 2 | Deflate the tire completely | Stored pneumatic energy; violent separation of multi-piece rim components | Remove the valve core and deflate fully before demounting; probe the valve stem with a wire to confirm it is not plugged [29 CFR 1910.177] |
| 3 | Jack and support the axle | Crushing if the jack slips or fails | Rated jack on firm footing; jack stands set before any part of the body goes near or under; never work off the jack alone |
| 4 | Remove and handle the tire and wheel assembly | Back and shoulder strain; assembly dropped on feet | Tire dolly or two-person handling; safety-toe footwear; clear the drop zone before breaking the assembly loose |
| 5 | Inflate the tire | Explosive separation during inflation — the most dangerous step of this job | Restraining device or safety cage; clip-on chuck with enough hose to stand outside the trajectory; inflate in stages and inspect between them [1910.177(d)] |
| 6 | Reinstall the wheel and torque the fasteners | Wheel-off events later from under- or over-torqued fasteners | Torque to manufacturer spec with a calibrated wrench, in the specified star pattern; schedule and document a re-torque check after return to service |
Worked example 2: working from a portable ladder
Ladders produce some of the most common — and most preventable — injuries in both construction and general industry. Six steps cover the whole job, and every control is cheap.
JHA: Working from a portable ladder
| # | Job step | Hazards | Controls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Select the right ladder | Wrong duty rating; conductive ladder near energized parts; ladder too short for the task | Match the duty rating to worker plus tools; fiberglass for any work near electrical; choose a height that keeps you off the top two steps |
| 2 | Inspect before use | Cracked rails, bent rungs, missing feet, damaged spreaders | A 30-second inspection every shift; tag damaged ladders and remove them from service immediately [29 CFR 1926.1053; 1910.23] |
| 3 | Set the ladder up | Kick-out on slick or sloped surfaces; doors swinging into the ladder; overhead lines | Firm, level base; 4-to-1 angle for extension ladders; extend 3 feet above the landing and secure the top; barricade or lock nearby doors; check overhead clearances first |
| 4 | Climb | Falls from slips or carried loads | Three points of contact; face the ladder; raise tools with a hand line or carry them on a belt — never in your hands |
| 5 | Work from the ladder | Overreaching and overbalancing; dropped tools striking people below | Keep your belt buckle between the rails; climb down and reposition instead of reaching; tool lanyards; barricade the area below |
| 6 | Descend and store | Slips on descent; strain during handling and storage | Face the ladder on the way down; store secured, out of walkways, away from heat and weather that degrade rails |
The mistakes that make JHAs useless
- Written from a desk. The gap between the job as imagined and the job as performed is precisely where people get hurt. Watch the work.
- Steps at the wrong altitude. "Change the tire" as a single step hides five hazards; thirty micro-steps guarantee nobody reads it. Six to ten is the working range.
- Vague hazards. If the hazard column could be pasted into any other JHA unchanged, it says nothing about this job.
- Controls that are all PPE. PPE is the last line, not the plan. Reach up the hierarchy first.
- One-and-done. Review after incidents and near misses, after equipment or process changes, and on a schedule. A JHA nobody has touched in years documents a program that stopped.
- No crew signatures. The workers who do the job should review and sign it — both because they will catch what you missed and because an unsigned JHA proves nothing about training [29 CFR 1926.21(b)(2) requires instructing employees in hazard recognition and avoidance].
Don't hand-write these
A thorough JHA takes an hour or two by hand, which is exactly why most companies have a binder of thin ones. The JHA generator produces a complete steps-hazards-controls analysis from a one-sentence job description in about 60 seconds — unlimited on Pro, versus the roughly $29 per document the template mills charge. When the job needs a full written procedure behind it, the SOP builder picks up where the JHA leaves off, and training requirements by topic shows which courses close the gaps your analysis exposes.