What an FLHA is and why it matters

At 6:40 on a cold October morning, a crew from Coldwater Field Services Ltd. pulled up to a natural gas valve site on the edge of Medicine Hat. The job looked simple: dig down to a buried service line, expose about 3 m (10 ft) of pipe, cut out a corroded section and weld in a new one. Lead hand Dani Whitehorse had done the same job dozens of times. Sam Oduya, a labourer in his second month with the company, had never done it at all.

Before anyone touched a shovel, Dani handed Sam a clipboard and a pen. 'Read the work order out loud,' she said. 'Then we walk the site, and then we fill this in together.' The form at the top of the clipboard said field-level hazard assessment (FLHA). Sam had signed a dozen of them already, mostly by putting his name at the bottom where someone pointed. Today Dani wanted him to understand what the form was for.

The walk took eight minutes. In that time the crew found a second gas line that was not on the work order drawing, a gopher hole near where the hydrovac truck would park, a power line crossing the back corner of the lot, and frost on the ladder rungs. None of those hazards were unusual. All of them could have hurt someone if nobody had looked. That, Dani told Sam, is what an FLHA is for: to make the crew stop, look at the actual work in the actual place on the actual day, and decide together how to do it without anyone getting hurt.

This course is about doing that well. It is written for field workers and the lead hands who run small crews in construction, utilities, oil and gas, and maintenance. You will follow Dani's crew through a season of real jobs in and around Medicine Hat, and you will learn how to fill in an FLHA that actually catches hazards, how to think about energy and the line of fire, how to choose controls that work, when to stop the job, and how to lead a pre-job talk that people listen to.

What an FLHA is

A field-level hazard assessment, or FLHA, is a short, written hazard assessment done by the people doing the work, at the work location, right before the work starts. It is sometimes called a field-level risk assessment (FLRA), a tailboard, a tailgate hazard assessment or a pre-job hazard assessment, depending on the company and the industry. In Alberta, the term FLHA is widely used across oil and gas, utilities and construction.

Whatever the name, the core is always the same. The crew lists the steps of the job, looks for the hazards in each step and in the surroundings, decides how each hazard will be controlled, and writes it down. Everyone who will do the work reviews it and signs it. If conditions change during the day, the crew stops and updates it.

An FLHA has three features that make it different from other safety paperwork:

• It is done by the people doing the work. The crew knows things that a manager in an office cannot know: that the ground is soft from last night's rain, that the new labourer has never used a cut-off saw, that a customer's dog is loose in the yard.
• It is done at the work location. Hazards are found by looking, not by remembering. A form filled in at the shop the night before misses whatever is different about today.
• It is done right before the work starts, and again when things change. It is a snapshot of today's conditions, not a permanent document.

How an FLHA fits with other hazard assessments

Most companies assess hazards at more than one level. It helps to know where an FLHA fits, because it is not meant to do everything on its own.

• Formal hazard assessment. Done by the employer, usually by supervisors, safety staff and experienced workers, for each type of job or work site. It is written ahead of time, looks at every step of a routine job, and sets out the standard controls and procedures. For Coldwater, there is a formal hazard assessment for 'excavation and repair of a steel service line.'
• Safe work procedures and practices. Written steps for doing specific tasks, such as hydrovac excavation, cold cutting a pipe or entering a valve vault. These come from the formal assessment.
• Site-specific assessment. For a larger project, the prime contractor or client often prepares an assessment of the whole site, covering things like traffic, other contractors and emergency access.
• Field-level hazard assessment. Done by the crew on the day, at the spot, for the task in front of them. It picks up what the earlier levels could not know: today's weather, today's ground, today's crew, today's surprises.

The levels support each other. A good FLHA does not try to rewrite the whole procedure. It points to the procedure, then asks: what is different here, today? If the crew finds that the procedure does not fit the job, that is a signal to stop and call the supervisor, not to improvise.

Why it matters

The best reason to take FLHAs seriously is simple. Most people hurt at work are hurt doing ordinary tasks, on ordinary days, by hazards that someone could have seen. In field work, the hazards change from site to site and hour to hour. A trench that was stable at 8 a.m. may not be stable after a rain shower. A line that was locked out may be put back in service by someone who did not know the crew was there. A pump that was quiet may start without warning.

Research on hazard recognition in construction has found the same uncomfortable result again and again: even experienced workers, asked to list the hazards in a work scene, often miss a large share of them. In some studies crews missed close to half. People are not careless. Our brains simply get used to familiar hazards and stop noticing them. A structured walk and a written list are tools for fighting that habit.

FLHAs also matter because serious injuries and fatalities follow a different pattern from minor injuries. A crew can go years without a cut finger and still be one dropped load or one gas release away from a fatality. Safety researchers now focus on the high-energy hazards that cause serious injuries and fatalities, and on making sure each one has a control that works even when someone makes a mistake. Lesson 5 covers this idea in detail. A good FLHA is where a crew first asks those questions about each job.

What a good FLHA does for the crew

• It shares what each person knows. The operator knows where the truck's blind spots are. The welder knows how far sparks fly. The new labourer may notice something everyone else has stopped seeing.
• It makes the plan visible. When the plan is on paper, people can question it. 'Who is watching the excavator while we are in the hole?' is easier to ask when the answer is supposed to be written down.
• It gives everyone permission to speak up. Signing an FLHA means agreeing to the plan, and that includes agreeing that anyone can stop the job if the plan stops working.
• It prepares the crew for an emergency. The form names the muster point, the nearest hospital, who has the first aid kit, and how the crew will call for help.
• It creates a record. If something goes wrong, the form shows what the crew knew and planned. That record helps the company learn, not just assign blame.

What an FLHA is not

Dani had seen many bad FLHAs over the years. Some were filled in at the shop before the crew even saw the site. Some were copied from yesterday's form with the date changed. Some listed 'slips, trips and falls' and 'pinch points' for every job, from welding to paperwork. Some were signed by people who arrived after the work started and never read them.

Those forms all look like hazard assessments, but they do nothing to protect people. Safety professionals call this 'pencil-whipping': filling in a form to satisfy a rule rather than to think about the work. Lesson 11 looks at why it happens and how supervisors can spot it. For now, it is enough to know what an FLHA is not:

• It is not a permit. Permits for hot work, confined space entry or ground disturbance give formal authority to do high-risk work under specific conditions. An FLHA works alongside permits but does not replace them.
• It is not a procedure. It does not tell you how to do the job step by step. It tells you what is different about today and how you will deal with it.
• It is not a shield against blame. A signed form does not make a job safe, and it does not move responsibility from the employer to the worker.
• It is not a one-time event. Once the job changes, the old form is out of date.

The four questions

When Sam asked how to remember all of this, Dani gave him four questions that sit under every FLHA, whatever the form looks like:

• What are we doing? Name the job and break it into steps.
• What could hurt us? Look at each step and at the surroundings for the hazards, especially the ones that could kill or seriously injure someone.
• What will we do about it? Choose controls for each hazard, starting with the strongest available.
• What will make us stop? Agree on the changes or warning signs that mean the crew stops and re-assesses.

The fourth question is the one most often forgotten. A plan is only good until conditions change. If the crew agrees ahead of time that rain, a new person on site, a smell of gas or an unexpected line means 'stop and talk,' they are much more likely to actually stop when it happens.

Who does what

Everyone on the crew has a part in an FLHA:

• The lead hand or crew lead runs the process, makes sure the walk happens, guides the discussion, checks that the controls are realistic, and makes sure everyone signs only after they understand. In most companies, the lead hand also signs as the person responsible for the form.
• Each worker takes part in the walk, names hazards they see, asks questions about anything they do not understand, and signs only when they agree. Under Alberta law, workers must take part in hazard assessments and must follow the controls.
• The supervisor or field superintendent reviews FLHAs regularly, visits crews, asks questions about the plan, and gives feedback. Supervisors also make sure crews have the time, equipment and help they need to follow the plan.
• Visitors and late arrivals must be briefed on the FLHA and sign it before they enter the work area.

On Dani's crew, the newest person reads the work order out loud and is asked first for hazards during the walk. It is a deliberate choice. New workers often see things that experienced workers have stopped noticing, and if they speak first, they are not just agreeing with what the lead hand has already said.

How long it should take

A common complaint is that FLHAs slow the job down. For a routine job on a familiar site, a good FLHA usually takes 10 to 20 minutes including the walk. For a complex job, it may take longer, and that time is well spent. Most of the time is in the walk and the discussion, not the writing. A crew that spends two minutes on the form and goes straight to work has not saved time; it has skipped the part that finds the hazards.

Dani tells new workers that the FLHA is the cheapest part of the job. Fifteen minutes spent at the start costs much less than a damaged gas line, a cave-in or a trip to the hospital. It also tends to save time later, because the crew has agreed on the plan, has the right equipment ready and is not stopping to argue in the middle of the job.