3 Facts About Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) in Construction

The three facts below come from OSHA’s guide to job hazard analysis, Publication 3071, and from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) safety manual, EM 385-1-1. We rewrote this article in October 2026 so that each fact is specific and tied to a source you can check.

1. A JHA is a step-by-step hazard review that goes by several names

OSHA 3071 defines a job hazard analysis as a technique that focuses on job tasks as a way to identify hazards before they occur. It looks at the relationship between the worker, the task, the tools, and the work environment. On paper, that means listing the steps of one task, the hazards at each step, and the controls that bring the risk down to an acceptable level.

You will see the same process under other names:

• Job safety analysis (JSA). OSHA 3071 uses this term as well, in its section on what to know before you start an analysis.
• Activity Hazard Analysis (AHA). This is the USACE term. EM 385-1-1, effective 15 March 2024, accepts JSAs, JHAs, or similar tools in place of an AHA as long as they collect the same data an AHA requires.
• Task hazard analysis and pre-task plan. Companies define these in different ways. A pre-task plan is often a shorter daily form that points back to a longer JHA.

Federal OSHA recommends JHAs and has no general construction rule requiring a written JHA for every task. Owners, general contractors, and USACE can require one through the contract. The guide to the 6 benefits of job hazard analysis covers which OSHA rules do apply.

2. OSHA tells you which jobs to analyze first

If you are starting a JHA program, OSHA 3071 tells you where to begin. It says a JHA can be done on many jobs and that priority should go to five types. The right column gives a construction example for each.

OSHA 3071 priority	Construction example
Jobs with the highest injury or illness rates	Carrying and stocking material, if strains keep showing up in your injury records
Jobs that could cause severe or disabling injury or illness, even with no history of accidents	Work at an unprotected deck edge, crane picks, trench work
Jobs where one simple human error could lead to a severe accident or injury	Landing material at a hoist opening with the guardrail removed
Jobs that are new to your operation or have changed in process or procedure	The first pour with a new formwork system
Jobs complex enough to require written instructions	Locking out a temporary electrical panel before tie-in work

OSHA 3071 also recommends reviewing your accident history with employees, including near misses, and then ranking jobs by how likely their hazards are to occur and how severe the consequences would be. The jobs at the top of that ranking get analyzed first. The free 5x5 risk matrix gives you one way to score likelihood and consequence consistently.

3. The workers who do the job should help write it

The first instruction in the section of OSHA 3071 on where to begin is to involve your employees. The booklet says they have a unique understanding of the job and that this knowledge is invaluable for finding hazards. It recommends watching a worker do the job, listing each step as they take it, and reviewing the list with them afterward to catch anything left out. It also says to tell the worker that you are evaluating the job itself and that their performance is a separate matter.

USACE takes the same position. EM 385-1-1 says employees should be involved in developing AHAs for the work activities they perform. The USACE web page on AHAs says that, ideally, the workers involved with an activity should develop the AHA, because they normally have the technical expertise to know the process and its hazards.

On a construction site, that means the foreman or competent person leads the JHA with the crew, at the work area, before work starts. The crew names the steps and hazards and agrees on the controls. Everyone who will do the work signs it. The free JHA builder walks through steps, hazards, controls, and before and after risk scores, and the templates page has a blank JHA you can print. For a full walkthrough with a worked example, read how to write a job hazard analysis.