Best overall
JHA
The most common name on prequalification forms and the one whose three-column shape everyone recognises on sight.
Caution
JHA vs JSA vs pre-task plan
None of the three appears in 29 CFR. They are industry names for documents that discharge duties the standards do state — and knowing which duty each one answers is what stops a plan being rejected.
Best for a crew
Pre-task plan
Written by the crew at the tailgate for today's conditions. Shortest, freshest, and the only one that reflects the weather.
Best for a file
JSA
Same document as a JHA under an older name. Use whichever word the contract uses and stop arguing about it.
Caution
The comparison, line by line
| Line | JHA | JSA | Pre-task plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Named in 29 CFR? | No | No | No |
| Duty it discharges | 1926.20(b), 1926.21(b)(2) | Same | Same, plus daily briefing |
| Scope | One task, any day it is performed | One task | Today’s task, today’s conditions |
| Written by | Supervisor with the crew | Supervisor | The crew, at the tailgate |
| Typical length | 1–2 pages | 1–2 pages | Half a page |
| Refreshed | When the task or method changes | Same | Every shift |
| Signed by the crew? | Usually | Sometimes | Always |
| What a GC asks for | This one, by name | Accepted as the same thing | Asked for on top, not instead |
Duties read from 29 CFR 1926.20 and 1926.21 on 2026-09-04; the rest is contract practice, not regulation.
JHA and JSA are the same document
Job hazard analysis and job safety analysis describe the same exercise: break a task into steps, name the hazard at each step, record the control. The rename to “hazard” happened because “safety analysis” encouraged people to write the control before they had identified the hazard, which is how a form ends up saying “wear PPE” eight times.
Use whichever word the contract uses. If the prequalification form says JSA, hand them a JSA — the same sheet with a different heading. What matters is that the middle column names hazards and not injuries, and that the right column climbs the control hierarchy rather than defaulting to PPE.
The form is on the JHA template.
The pre-task plan is a different animal
A JHA is about a task in general. A pre-task plan is about this task, on this morning, with today’s crew, today’s weather and whoever else is working overhead. That is why it is short and why it is written at the tailgate by the people doing the work rather than in an office the week before.
Four lines cover it: what we are doing today, what changed since yesterday, the one hazard that worries us most, and who is doing what about it. Then everybody signs.
Caution
A pre-task plan is not a substitute for the JHA and a JHA is not a substitute for the pre-task plan. The first is generic and durable; the second is specific and disposable. Most GC contracts want both, and rejecting a plan for having only one is routine.
Who signs, and why the signature matters
The signatures are what convert a document into the instruction 1926.21(b)(2) requires — the employer shall instruct each employee in the recognition and avoidance of unsafe conditions and the regulations applicable to the work environment. A hazard analysis nobody read instructs nobody.
The person leading it should meet the 1926.32(f) competent-person definition for the hazards in play: capable of identifying existing and predictable hazards, and authorised to take prompt corrective measures. If the person running the tailgate cannot stop the work, the plan has no teeth. See competent person under OSHA.
How the three stack with everything else
- Site-specific safety plan — the whole scope, written before you mobilise. Template.
- JHA / JSA — one per high-risk task, attached to the plan as each phase starts.
- Pre-task plan — every shift, at the tailgate.
- Toolbox talk — weekly, one hazard, the whole crew. Template.
Four documents at four cadences. Contractors who collapse them into one produce a stack of identical sheets that satisfies nobody, and contractors who run all four find the fourth one writes itself from the third.
Sources, with the date each was read
- 29 CFR 1926.20 — General safety and health provisions (OSHA)read 2026-09-04
- 29 CFR 1926.21 — Safety training and education (OSHA)read 2026-09-04
- 29 CFR 1926.32 — Definitions (OSHA)read 2026-09-04