Free Electrical Job Hazard Analysis Template (JHA / JSA)

JHA and JSA are two names for one document — job hazard analysis is OSHA's term in OSHA 3071, job safety analysis is the common one. A risk assessment is different in kind. It is a register: hazards scored likelihood × severity on a matrix, controls applied, residual re-scored, written once per project and reviewed periodically. A JHA is a sequence: this job, broken into the steps the crew will actually take, each step analysed for its own hazards. On electrical work the sequence is the safety case. "Electric shock" as a register row is true and useless; the analysis that matters is that step 2 is establishing the boundary, step 3 is opening the enclosure while it is still energised, step 4 is applying locks, and step 5 is proving dead — and that step 3 is the one that needs an energized work justification, not the job as a whole. A register flattens all of that into one line.

Only where the employer can demonstrate that de-energising would introduce additional or increased hazards, or is infeasible due to equipment design or operational limitations — 29 CFR 1910.333(a)(1). OSHA gives greater-hazard examples such as interrupting life-support equipment, deactivating emergency alarm systems, or shutting down hazardous-location ventilation. Testing and troubleshooting that inherently requires the circuit energised falls under infeasibility. Production schedule, cost and the customer not wanting the power off do not qualify. Where energised work is justified, only qualified persons may perform it (1910.333(c)(2)) and the PPE requirements at 1910.335(a) apply. This form records that justification against the specific step, which is where the demonstration actually has to hold up.

Because it is, and pretending otherwise is how analyses stop improving. NIOSH ranks the five tiers — elimination, substitution, engineering, administrative, PPE — and states that PPE is least effective, since it does nothing to the hazard itself and fails at the moment the hazard reaches the worker. Arc-rated clothing is genuinely essential inside the boundary and this form does not discourage it; what the tier label does is make visible that PPE is all that stands between the worker and the incident energy. The elimination-tier control for arc flash is not being in front of energised equipment. Seeing the step marked as PPE-only is the prompt to ask whether that was really unavoidable.

Not as such, and the distinction matters. The energized electrical work permit is NFPA 70E 130.2(B) — a consensus standard published by the NFPA, which OSHA does not incorporate by reference into 29 CFR 1910 Subpart S. What OSHA requires is the underlying demonstration at 1910.333(a)(1) that de-energising presents a greater hazard or is infeasible, that only qualified persons do the work (1910.333(c)(2)), and that appropriate PPE is used (1910.132, 1910.335(a)). NFPA 70E is the practical route to satisfying those, and OSHA treats it as evidence of recognised industry practice including under the General Duty Clause. This form labels which is which, and gates sign-off on the justification being recorded either way.

A qualified person must use test equipment to test the circuit elements and parts employees will be exposed to and verify they are de-energised — 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2)(iv)(B). Separately, 1910.334(c)(2) requires the test instrument to be checked for proper operation immediately before and immediately after that test. That is the live–dead–live sequence, and it exists because a meter with a blown fuse or a dead battery reads zero volts on an energised bus. It reads zero the same way whether the circuit is dead or the meter is. In this builder verification is its own control on its own step, not a clause buried in a lockout row.

Enough that each step is one distinct action with its own hazards, and few enough that the crew reads the whole thing. OSHA 3071 gives no number — it warns against a breakdown so granular it becomes unusable and one so broad that hazards hide inside a step. The working test is whether a step needs more than one control answer; if it does, it is two steps. This form caps at twelve, an application limit rather than a standard. Most service and replacement jobs land between four and eight.

No, and every export says so. It is a template the employer must adapt to the actual job, the actual site and any state plan that applies, and must train the crew on. A completed analysis records that the analysis was done; it is not itself compliance with any standard. It does not replace your written electrical safety program, your energy control procedures under 1910.147, your energised work process, or an incident-energy study — and where the analysis triggers a permit, that permit is a separate document that must be issued before work starts. Citations explain why a hazard is in the library; they do not certify anything.