Saturday, May 04, 2024
Spring has arrived and the weather is mild. These are great days for construction. The grass is growing, the fields turning green, trees are budding, and life is renewing all around us. It is a great time to refresh our thoughts about things we do every day and sometimes forget the reasons we do them.
Job Hazard Analysis (JHAs): We do JHA's every day and it is easy to fall into a trap of just checking the same boxes every day without thinking about it. We need to remember that the purpose of the JHA is to think about the tasks at hand that day and the hazards that are associated with those tasks and make sure we are aware of them, and we find ways to avoid them and minimize them. Each day when you are doing your JHA briefing, think through what you will be doing that day and really think about the hazards of the task and select those hazards and then select that ways you will mitigate those hazards. This means your supervisors will most likely need to change things on the standard JHAs every day and sometimes they will have to write a JHA from scratch starting with a blank JHA. Help your supervisor out by pointing it out in the JHA briefing if the JHA does not match the hazards of the task being performed that day. We are all responsible for our safety and helping to keep those around us safe.
Pre-task Cards: Be sure to fill out your pre-task card every day while you are doing the JHA briefing and have it on your person all day throughout the shift. If you see a near miss or an incident, write it on your pre-task card so that we have a record of these things. If you see a hazard that was not talked about in the JHA briefing or on the JHA, write it down so we can address it. This includes any hazard, regardless of the cause or who is responsible. If you have ideas to help make us safer, write down on your pre-task card. And one when someone who was not in your JHA briefing comes into your work area, be sure to challenge them and go over your pre-task card with them. Turn in your pre-task card every shift to your supervisor. Supervisors be sure to check the pre-task cards from your crew. If they have hazards, ideas, or near misses on their card be sure to do a Rapid Observation and include and pictures of the pre-task card and send it to safety@elightelectric.com. Also be sure to check the close of shift boxes on the pre-task card as a reminder to make sure the work was complete; the tools have all been put away neatly in their cases and the work area was cleaned up. We always need to stay focused on being safe. It is easy to focus on the big things, but it is small things that can trip us up and taking the time to think things through, talk about them, remind each other and being organized and efficient can go a long way to us being safer, more efficient and better.
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