How to write a Task Analysis

A Task Analysis is written before the work starts, by the people who will do it or supervise it. The document is the record; the thinking is the point. This is the order that thinking goes in, and what each step is actually asking you.

Before you start writing

Three things decide whether the document is any use. Know the task, not the job: edge protection on a two-storey reroof, not the reroof. Know the site, because the same task on a sloped site beside a live road is not the same task in a yard. And know who is doing it, because the controls you can rely on depend on their training, their equipment and their experience.

If you are starting from a prepared template, the first two are still yours to do. The template brings the task knowledge; the site and the crew are what you add.

1. Break the task into steps

Write the steps in the order they happen, in the words the crew would use. Five to twelve steps suits most tasks. Setting up, doing the work, and packing down are all steps, and the first and last are where a surprising amount goes wrong.

Keep each step a single action. "Install edge protection" is a step. "Install edge protection and strip the roof" is two, and splitting them is what reveals that the hazards are different.

2. Name the hazard at each step

For each step, ask what could harm someone and how. Be specific about the mechanism: not "height" but "fall from the eave while positioning the first bracket". A hazard written as a category gives the next person nothing to control.

Include the hazards your work creates for other people on site. That is not a courtesy: the primary duty in section 36 covers other persons, not just your own workers, and on a shared site section 34 requires you to consult, cooperate and coordinate with the other businesses there.

3. Rate the risk as it stands

Using the 5 by 5 matrix, rate likelihood and consequence before any controls. This is the honest number, and it is meant to look uncomfortable. Rating the uncontrolled risk low is the most common way a document stops being useful, because everything after it then looks like paperwork.

4. Choose controls in the order the regulations set

Section 30 and regulation 6 are not a menu. You must eliminate the risk so far as is reasonably practicable (s30), and only if that is not reasonably practicable may you minimise it. Minimising means substitution, isolation or engineering controls, which sit at the same level and can be used singly or in combination, then administrative controls, and personal protective equipment last.

Write down why you did not eliminate, where you could not. "Scaffold not practicable, work is a two-hour repair on a 3 m single storey, edge protection and harness used instead" is an answer. Silence on the point is the gap an inspector finds first.

PPE is the last line, not the first. A document whose controls are mostly PPE is usually a document where the earlier levels were not considered.

Make each control specific and owned

A control needs to say what, who and when. "Edge protection installed to the eave and verified by the supervisor before anyone goes on the roof" can be checked. "Use edge protection" cannot.

5. Rate the residual risk

Rate it again with the controls in place. If the rating has not moved, the controls are not doing what you think. If the residual is still high or extreme, the task should not go ahead as planned, and the document should say what changes instead.

6. Add the surrounding detail

• Plant and equipment, including what has to be inspected or certified before use.
• Competence and licences. Restricted building work, electrical work and gasfitting all have their own regimes, and the document should name who holds what.
• PPE, specific to the task rather than a site-wide list.
• Emergency arrangements, including rescue where a fall arrest system is used. A harness with no rescue plan is a suspension hazard.
• The general details: project, address, date, who prepared it. Blank fields are the first thing a site manager returns.

7. Brief the crew and take the sign-on

Walk the crew through it before the work starts, at the place the work will happen if you can. Ask them what is missing. Sections 58 to 59 of the Act require you to engage the workers affected, sharing the information, asking their views and taking them into account, and this is the most direct version of that there is.

Then everyone doing the work signs on. A sign-on collected at the end of the day records attendance, not a briefing.

8. Review it when something changes

New task, new crew, new weather, a near miss, a change in method or sequence. The regulations require controls to be maintained and reviewed, and a document that was accurate on Monday can be wrong by Thursday. Date the revision so the version at the work face is identifiable.

What good looks like

Someone who was not at the briefing can read it and know what the task is, what could go wrong, what is being done about it and who is responsible. If it does not do that, it is a filing exercise, whatever rating is in the boxes.

Sources

• Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, ss34, 36, 58 and 59
• Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016, reg 6 (hierarchy of control measures) and regs 5 to 8
• WorkSafe New Zealand, Identifying, assessing and managing work risks
• Health and Safety in Employment Regulations 1995, reg 26 (particular hazardous work requiring notice)

This guide is general information about New Zealand health and safety law as at the review date. It is not legal advice and it does not describe your site. Confirm what applies to you with WorkSafe New Zealand or your adviser.