A field level hazard assessment, or FLHA, is the check a crew makes at the work location, on the day, before the job starts and again when conditions change. Most crews know how to do one. The harder question is the record: what to put in it, and what you can’t prove with it.
What is a field level hazard assessment?
It is a hazard assessment carried out at the work site, by the people about to do the work, for the conditions in front of them.
In its handbook on hazard assessment, the Government of Alberta calls it a site-specific hazard assessment: “Site-specific hazard assessments (also called field-level hazard assessments) are in fact an administrative control used to address hazards that show up as a result of changing circumstances at a work site.” It also sets out when they happen: “Site-specific hazard assessments check for hazards before work starts at a site and at a site where conditions change or when non-routine work is added.”
FLHA is the usual name in Alberta. Elsewhere in Canada you will often hear field level risk assessment, or FLRA. The nearest equivalents are the job hazard analysis or pre-task plan in the United States and the take 5 in Australia. We mapped ten of these names onto one method in JSA, JHA, take five and the rest.
Who completes an FLHA, and when?
The crew doing the work, at the work location, before they start.
Alberta writes worker involvement into the rule itself. Under section 8 of the Occupational Health and Safety Code, “An employer must involve affected workers in the hazard assessment and in the control or elimination of the hazards identified.”
The handbook’s triggers are the start of work, a change in conditions and the addition of non-routine work. Many site procedures add their own, such as a new crew member joining or work resuming after a long stop. An FLHA that is never revised during a long shift on a changing site is worth a question.
What should go in an FLHA record?
What the crew checked, what they found, and anything that needs attention before or during the job. In The Frontline Reporting Index 2027 we put it this way: a useful record “should preserve what was checked, what the worker found and any exception requiring attention.”
From a ticked box, a reader learns only that the question was answered, and nothing about the answer that anyone could check.
| Ticked | Recorded |
|---|---|
| Isolation: yes | Isolated at MCC-3 breaker 14 and at the local isolator, locked by the electrician, test before touch done at the motor terminals |
| Weather: OK | Wind gusting from the north. Lift stops if the anemometer reads above the limit in the lift plan |
| Hazards identified: yes | Pump base wet from a weeping seal, slip risk. Spill kit placed and the area cordoned before starting |
The right-hand column takes longer to say than to tick, and a supervisor or an investigator can act on it.
What can’t you prove with an FLHA record?
That the control works. In the report we drew this line in one sentence: “‘The worker reported that the control was checked’ and ‘the control was independently verified as effective’ are different claims.”
An FLHA record is evidence that a crew checked something and said so. That is valuable, and it is still a record of an account. Verification of the control itself, through inspection, testing or audit, is a separate step with its own evidence.
Why do FLHAs get completed after the job has started?
Because the crew has to fit the paperwork into the window before work starts.
Repetition. The fourth identical FLHA on the same task in a week gets less thought than the first.
Time. When the form routinely takes longer than the gap before the plant is available, it gets filled in once work is under way, or at the end.
Generic lists. When the form is a list of generic hazards to tick, the crew answers the form instead of looking at the job.
Nobody reads them. If nothing raised on an FLHA ever gets a response, the crew learns it is for the auditor.
Once an FLHA is completed after the job has started, you can no longer use it as evidence that anyone checked before the work began.
One of the eight measures in the report applies directly here. Work-to-Record Lag is the “Elapsed observation-to-usable-confirmed-record time.” For FLHAs, compare the time each assessment was completed with the job or permit start time, and count the share completed afterwards.
How do you audit your FLHAs?
Take twenty completed FLHAs from one site and check five things.
- Timing. Was each one completed before the work started? Compare against permit or job start times.
- Revisions. Where conditions changed during the shift, is there a revised assessment?
- Specific or copied. Are the hazards specific to that job, or the same wording as yesterday’s?
- Exceptions. Where something was found, is there a record of what was done about it?
- The crew. Did the people doing the work take part, or is there one signature for everyone?
We’d expect most of the discussion to come from the first check: the timestamps are already in the system and, in our experience, few people have compared them.
Can a crew complete an FLHA by talking it through?
Yes. With Tandm, the worker or crew lead works through the assessment by speaking or typing, in their own language, at the job. Tandm asks for the information the approved assessment requires and makes an incomplete or uncertain answer visible. It reads the completed assessment back, and nothing is recorded until the worker confirms it. The record goes into the safety system you already run.
It doesn’t inspect anything. In the report we wrote that “a conversation does not independently inspect the site”, so the assessment still rests on the crew’s own check of the conditions in front of them.
For a paper or spreadsheet version, our pre-task assessment template maps FLHA, FLRA, JSA and the other names onto the same three columns. No email required.
We will be at MiningTech North America at the Vancouver Convention Centre on 9 and 10 November. Book a time to talk, there or online.
Sources
- Government of Alberta, Hazard Assessment and Control: a handbook for Alberta employers and workers, May 2020. open.alberta.ca
- Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Code, Part 2, sections 7 and 8. alberta.ca
- Tandm, The Frontline Reporting Index 2027: The work-to-record gap, framework edition, October 2026, chapter 5 and page 16. tandm.io