Field-Level Hazard Assessment (Pre-Task Planning)

What you'll learn

• Explain what a pre-task plan is, how it fits with formal hazard assessments, procedures and site plans, and why it must be done by the crew at the work location before work starts and when conditions change.
• Describe the legal basis for finding and controlling hazards under OSHA, including the general duty clause, hazard training and competent person requirements, specific standards, the multi-employer citation policy and client prequalification.
• Complete each part of a pre-task plan form correctly, including the header, emergency information, site conditions, steps, hazards and controls, prompt list, PPE and permits, sign-on, re-assessment log and close-out.
• Break a job into clear action steps from arrival to departure and scan the work area above, below, around and behind, including the questions about what is different today.
• Use the energy wheel to recognize hazards, identify high-energy hazards likely to cause serious injury or death, and estimate simple energies for falling and moving objects.
• Recognize and control line-of-fire, overhead, buried facility and simultaneous operations hazards, including locates, safe limits of approach and coordination with other parties.
• Rate hazards on a risk matrix before and after controls, require direct controls for fatal-severity hazards, and explain the limits of risk matrices.
• Choose controls using the hierarchy of controls, write controls that are specific, owned and checkable, identify critical controls and verify them in the field.
• Use stop-work authority safely, explain the formal right to refuse, recognize changing conditions, and re-assess and record changes during the job.
• Lead a short, effective pre-job talk using open and directed questions, teach-back and engagement techniques, and brief late arrivals and visitors.
• Recognize pencil-whipped forms, run quality checks using field reviews, random form samples and interviews, and coach crews and fix system problems.
• Link pre-task plans with permits, isolations, confined space entry and hot work, and plan complex jobs from steps to critical controls and stop triggers.