JSA
Also known as: Job Safety Analysis
A Job Safety Analysis is a step-by-step task-level risk assessment: break the job into steps, identify the hazards for each step, decide the controls, assign responsibilities. JSAs are not legally named in the WHS Regulations but are a near-universal industry practice for crew-level pre-task analysis.
Legal context
A JSA is a pre-task hazard analysis built around the workflow itself. Each step of the job is listed in sequence; for each step, the hazards are identified, the consequence and likelihood are rated against a risk matrix, and the controls are applied using the hierarchy of control. The team doing the work participates in writing it — that is where most of its value comes from. JSAs are common in mining, civil construction, manufacturing, oil and gas, and emergency services. Unlike a SWMS, a JSA is not the legally-named document for HRCW — but where HRCW is involved, a JSA is often the underpinning analysis that informs the SWMS.
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Related terms
SWMS
A Safe Work Method Statement is a written document required by WHS Regulation 299 for any high-risk construction work. It identifies the work, the hazards, the controls (in hierarchy-of-control order), the residual risks, and the person responsible. The principal contractor must keep it for the life of the project.
JSEA
A Job Safety and Environmental Analysis is a JSA extended to cover environmental risks (spills, emissions, contaminated land disturbance, biodiversity impacts) in addition to safety risks. JSEAs are common where an ISO 14001 environmental management system is in place alongside ISO 45001.
Hierarchy of control
The hierarchy of control is the rank-ordered preference for risk treatment: eliminate the hazard, then substitute, then isolate, then engineer, then administer, then PPE as a last resort. Higher controls reduce risk more reliably than lower controls because they do not depend on people behaving correctly under stress.
Take 5
A Take 5 is a 5-step pre-task hazard check performed by a worker before starting work: Stop, Think, Look, Assess, Act / Manage. It is a worker-level rapid risk assessment used between a JSA and the actual physical work, often captured on a card or app.
Platform pillars
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47 WHS and HSWA terms with legal context, FAQs and regulator references.