Reframe Risk with Daily Planning Conversations

The Historical Journey of the JHA Process

Twenty-five years ago, the relatively new safety profession consisted of process-minded professionals creating physical controls, barriers, and compliance processes in mostly fixed locations designed to prevent or protect those closest to the work from harm. Compliance was the goal, and discipline, documentation, and procedures were the tools to achieve it. Safety professionals were often physically present in stagnant work environments such as manufacturing, implementing regulatory-based processes, and ensuring compliance. Safety professionals measured success by looking at historical incident rates and the number of reports generated.

The traditional safety approach never really fit the construction industry. Construction safety professionals worked diligently to create management systems and repeatable training and checklists-based processes to be applied over multiple sites to influence safe field-level behaviors and prevent incidents. Construction safety professionals faced a significant challenge as work spread over various locations with different trades and an everchanging risk profile as projects morphed each hour until they became the final structure.

Approximately 20 years ago, technology advancements allowed paper-based safety systems to become automated, trending checklist compliance. One tool that evolved out of our compliance-based safety processes that remains today is the JHA procedure. The JHA was one of the first safety compliance strategies designed to plan the work to prevent accidents.

While it's undeniable that the JHA can be a powerful safety tool to reduce injury effectively, JHAs are often regarded as meaningless paperwork, only reviewed when faced with a citation or a lawsuit.

— Safety Professional

In 1931, as society began to contemplate holding egregious employers responsible for employee welfare on the job, H.W. Heinrich recommended using what is now known as the JHA process to prevent injuries. Mr. Heinrich first formally described what we currently identify as a JHA in the 1931 publication of his book Industrial Accident Prevention: a Scientific Approach. Mr. Heinrich opined, "[Job analysis] will break the job down into its several constituent operations and show the hazards of each so that the latter may be recognized in advance and made known to the employee and so that he may be fully instructed in avoiding them." With this backdrop in place, the JHA became the practice to facilitate a safe work environment.

As time passed, too often, the JHA lost its effectiveness as the attention moved from knowledge transfer, dialogue, and heightened awareness to another ignored checklist completed for the singular purpose of compliance. A CPWR study ⁴ identified several challenges in creating meaningful JHA processes. Both craft workers and field supervisors did not buy into the JHA process, creating a significant issue with its efficacy. Some crew members may perceive JHAs as unnecessary paperwork with aggressive schedules and multiple competing responsibilities, especially if they appear wordy, complicated, or time-consuming. Respondents also noted that JHA forms were frequently "pencil whipped" or completed superficially without digesting and understanding the content. More experienced craft workers perceived that the completed JHA documents would sit unused on a bookshelf or get lost in the process or discarded.

There is a consensus in multiple industries, including construction, health care, and manufacturing that JHA is most effective when it actively involves the workers performing the task. Yet, research supports the JHA process. Studies ⁵ found that the crew's frequency of prework hazard identification positively correlated with project safety performance and reduced the injury rate. Other research findings also suggest that spending more time communicating hazards with workers on jobsites is associated with a lower incident rate. ⁶

While it's undeniable that the JHA can be a powerful safety tool to reduce injury effectively, JHAs are often regarded as meaningless paperwork, only reviewed when faced with a citation or a lawsuit.

The Safety Professional's Predicament

Historically, the safety professional assumes the role of the JHA champion, the one carrying the torch. Safety professionals have the JHA implementation and compliance resting squarely on their shoulders. In speaking to safety professional colleagues, there seem to be three categories that summarize what safety professionals think about the JHA process.

• Champion. Their organizations have a robust and engaging communication process. The JHA process is a daily planning conversation integrated into the operations team. The operation and safety team devotes time each day for the activity.
• At-risk. They have created a written document, perhaps a few years ago. They may even have prefilled-out daily task list forms. Unfortunately, the forms tend to become outdated and may not be sufficiently comprehensive to deal with actual field exposures. The operations team collects the signatures. The safety team checks the forms for signatures during their inspection process. They may engage in dialogue from time to time with the field. The field completes the forms because they have to, but no one understands why.
• Unengaged. These safety professionals have decided to forego the JHA process. They grew weary over checklists, which are only reviewed after an incident. Maybe they never had one in the first place, or the process came back to bite them when it failed. They are tired of persuading the field to "pencil whip" the process. They believe they have to "pick their battles" to succeed, and the JHA is not worth it.

The unintended consequence of a checklist-based JHA process is that we lost our focus on the opportunity for human connection. One safety professional said it best, "We have worked hard to fix the JHA activity for years, but we missed the mark. Trying to 'coach' people on their written document is frustratingly ineffective."

Purpose of the JHA

The study aimed to address the challenges with JHA's and explore how to regain our focus transfer of knowledge through conversations and improve human connection. The first step is to examine whether the JHA concept adds value. Why are we doing them? Is it an owner requirement or a best practice where we can measure an expected outcome, or is it an outdated compliance tool that lingers from good past intentions?

• Abandon. We explored abandoning the process altogether. How would it impact our company if we no longer did JHAs? Would we lose work because of it? Would we be eligible for safety awards highlighting industry best practices? How would it impact the field? Was a compliance form better than nothing?
• Status quo. What if we leave it as is? Our safety team worked very hard to get us to this point, so isn't it good enough? A few years ago, we spent time creating an easier-to-use, automated checklist in our integrated software. We also merged the JHA forms with the daily operational reports. We made a completion requirement by job title and created a performance metric. We documented, trained, and measured. The results showed that while we increased the usage of the report, compliance was, at best, average. What more do we as a safety team want? It is good enough, and we are sticking to it. Without a better alternative, this felt at the time like the best choice.
• Change. Despite our best efforts, it was not good enough. It was benchmarking with all industry best practices, but there were leading indicators that it just wasn't meeting our expectations. In an incident, invariably, the JHA didn't address the conditions that contributed to the loss. We could now track our compliance, and we were not consistently meeting the minimum requirement. The field was spending time having everyone sign the forms, and the safety team was checking that they were complete, but we were not gleaning any information out of the process that would make us safer. We decided the only course of action was to explore change.

Change Management Process

The JFC Risk Team uses the Traction EOS System ⁷ process to lead change. According to Traction author Gino Wickman, every organization has issues. What is important is creating an environment where people feel comfortable talking about it and calling them out. JFC applied the 3 Step Issue Solving Track.

1. Identify
2. Discuss
3. Solve

Everyone Speaks, but Not Everyone Is Heard

Everyone speaks in a typical construction environment, but not everyone is heard, especially in the field where team members are exposed to hazards every minute. It occurred to the JFC Risk Team that the seven components of an effective DPC aligned directly with the leadership communication strategies covered in the FSL program. The FSLs undertake the Giant World Wide "Sherpa" Leadership program. The curriculum includes a toolbox of concepts designed to create a common leadership language throughout the organization. For example, the Clarity Tool is designed to recognize that one of the most important objectives for the people you lead is clarity because it leads to effective action. Action generates results. But too often, it's impossible to know if our plan is clear. The clarity tool provides an easy checklist to help filter our communication to ensure it is memorable, powerful, and valuable to create meaningful results. The three questions are "Is it simple, scalable, and sustainable?"

Simple. Simple plans are easily communicated clearly to others. They reduce friction or excuses for lack of execution.

Scalable. Allow you to grow smoothly and avoid unnecessary problems.

Sustainable. The plans continue to add value, generate meaningful results, and reduce the risk of burning out people.

Our JHA process would fail without total clarity and never meet our expectations. Clarity isn't just about clearly telling how many JHAs to do in a week and which software to utilize. True clarity and meaningful results mean delivering the JHA in a collaborative approach inviting our people into the conversation, empowering them to ask questions, and getting their input, creating opportunities to maximize our team's effectiveness.

What We Have Learned

Exploring how to improve our JHA process has resulted in several key learning opportunities for everyone in our organization, including the following.

• Culture flows from our operational leaders to the field. How we communicate is essential.
• The JHA is not a hermetically sealed event. Information comes out of this event that transcends the event. Communication styles matter and convey trust, respect, perceived safety values, and relationships.
• The JHA is an excellent way to gauge our leadership performance and identify where we need to adjust our approach to reinforce and build resilient defenses.
• A good conversation doesn't take a lot of time. The best DPCs are under 5 minutes.
• We must intentionally teach people how to lead and communicate. Video provides tangible examples and peer-to-peer learning on how to improve.
• Most operational leaders want to make a difference. Unfortunately, sometimes we fail to find ways to have the impact they desire and need. By asking our operations leaders to do two simple things, they can easily have a tangible effect that transcends this activity. Rather than provide "coaching," we ask them to do the following.
  • Set the expectation that their teams will have conversations we are proud enough to share.
  • Provide heartfelt recognition to leaders who endeavor to improve how they engage with their teams during this brief daily activity.
• For safety professionals, there is nothing more valuable than delivering real value, cultivating relationships, and healthy conversations. Our safety team is now equipped to have more meaningful interaction during their time in the field. They can coach from what they observe in SmartTagIt. Coaching examples include the following.
  • How can I help you with the complex issue you mentioned this morning?
  • I heard/saw you were working on X today and that Joe was not paying attention.
  • Where is X? I want to check on them.
  • I heard you needed X, so I stopped by the shop and got one.
  • You are doing a great job building trust with the team. I love how they are opening up and talking with you.
  • That looks like a tricky pour. Let me reroute my plan for the day and be nearby if you need a hand.
  • I see that you are having the new guys lead the discussion now—great job helping them understand the purpose of this activity.
  • I have been listening to your last 5–6 JHAs and have noticed a pattern I want to share with others. Would you mind?
• The paper or automated electronic JHA process is insufficient and misses the opportunity to do the following.
  • Learn about ourselves as a leadership team or organization versus learning about them.
  • Encourage self-exploration to become a better communicator by collaborating and imitating others. The old saying "Imitation is the best form of flattery" rings true.
  • Establish clear expectations supported by examples and coaching around opportunities for improvement.
  • Determine if the field leadership conveys caring and respect.
  • Is anyone having the slightest hint of fun with this activity?

Conclusion

The safety professional and technology's role has evolved in the last 2 decades. Leaders must challenge static procedures that no longer serve their intended purpose to create a safer workplace. It is time to intentionally focus on ways to change not only the construction industry but the overall safety and risk management industry. By slightly shifting the JHA process lens to a DPC, we can create lasting change, reduce risk, and measure our culture of care initiatives.

Explore any checklist paper-based process, even those that have been automated, with a fresh set of eyes and dare to dig deeper and ask difficult questions about what you want from the activity. Explore the future state and embrace new technology methods that no longer rely on static forms or checking boxes. We can no longer accept the status quo as it distracts from the greater intention of creating safe workplaces for everyone. Focusing on people rather than checklists will always reduce risk and improve the overall outcome.