Stop work authority process flowchart (stop to resumption)

What the stop work authority process flowchart (stop to resumption) process is

Stop work authority is a standing permission rather than an event. Everyone on the site holds it, employees and contractors alike, it needs no approval to use, and it is exercised in the few seconds between noticing something wrong and the job carrying on regardless. What turns that permission into a process is everything that happens next, and that is what this chart draws: the stop called and the people the hazard reaches warned, the area made safe or vacated, the supervisor accepting the stop rather than arguing with it, the job walked with the person who stopped it, the hazard either controlled at source by the crew or escalated to the site manager and the EHS team, and a resumption authorised in writing only once the person who raised the stop agrees the hazard is controlled. It then keeps going where most written procedures stop early: the stop logged, the person thanked, any detriment they suffer afterwards investigated by somebody else, and a second stop on the same hazard turned into a corrective action rather than a third.

This is the live-job process, not the reporting one. Nobody has been hurt, nothing has been damaged, and the only real question is whether work restarts today. A hazard somebody notices but has no need to stop for belongs in near miss reporting, which is a form, a triage and a trend line rather than a halt. An event that has already happened belongs in safety incident investigation, with its scene to preserve, its witnesses to interview separately and its statutory notification clock running. The first minutes of a fire, a release or a rescue belong to emergency response, where the authority to direct people is the incident controller's rather than the individual's. And a job that should never have started uncontrolled belongs upstream, in permit to work and the pre-start briefing: a stop is not a substitute for a permit, and a site that relies on stops to catch what the permit should have caught is reading its own numbers backwards. Because the subject is safety-critical, treat this chart as a starting point to be adapted under your own procedures, the regulations that bind your site and competent-person review, never as a ready-made safety system.

Four decisions carry the process, and the lanes they sit in are the argument. "Hazard agreed on the spot?" sits with the area supervisor, because most stops are settled at the job within five minutes; its Disputed branch is the important half, sending the question to "EHS rules while the job stays stopped" so the person who called the stop never has to win an argument in order to keep it. "Can the hazard be eliminated today?" sits in the EHS lane rather than with the manager who owns the schedule, and it is asked before anybody is allowed to reach for a briefing and more protective equipment. "Does the person who stopped agree?" sits in the worker's lane, and it is the gate this whole page is built around: its Still unsafe branch loops back to EHS instead of overriding, so nobody restarts the job over the head of the person who halted it. "Any detriment reported afterwards?" sits with the site manager, because the authority is worth precisely what the last person who used it was treated like.

What this flowchart covers

In this template

• Five swimlanes (Any worker, Area supervisor, Contractor representative, EHS team and Site / operations manager) across six phases: Raise the stop, Make safe and notify, Assess the hazard, Resolve or escalate, Authorise resumption, and Record and learn.
• A first phase with no approval anywhere in it: "Stop the work and warn those affected", then "Make the area safe or withdraw", so the people the hazard reaches are told before anyone starts working out who was right.
• "Accept the stop without challenge" drawn as the supervisor's own step rather than as an assumption, followed by a "Contractor crew involved?" decision whose Contractor branch briefs the contractor representative before the job is walked.
• A "Hazard agreed on the spot?" decision whose Disputed branch runs "EHS rules while the job stays stopped", so a disagreement between the supervisor and the person who called the stop does not restart the job by default.
• "Can the hazard be eliminated today?" answered in the EHS lane with three branches, Eliminate, Interim control and Neither, the last of which ends at "Job stays stopped and is re-planned" rather than pretending every hazard is fixable within the shift.
• A resumption gate in the worker's lane, "Does the person who stopped agree?", ahead of "Authorise resumption in writing", and a closing phase carrying "Any detriment reported afterwards?" and a repeat check that raises a corrective action on the cause.

When to use this template

• You are writing or rewriting a stop work authority procedure and need one page showing who may stop a job, who makes it safe and who is allowed to start it again.
• Your site says everyone holds the authority, and yet every stop recorded in the last year was called by a supervisor or a safety adviser rather than by a member of the crew.
• Contractors and your own people work side by side, and it has never been agreed whose stop binds whom, or who briefs the other party's representative when one is called.
• Work has restarted after a stop on a verbal say-so, and you want the resumption decision named, evidenced and written down before the crew is sent back to the job.
• An auditor, a client or a certification body has asked how stop work authority works in practice, including what happens to the person who uses it afterwards.

How it works

1. Rename the lanes to your roles

   Replace Any worker, Area supervisor, Contractor representative, EHS team and Site / operations manager with the roles that genuinely exist where you operate. Keep the worker lane at the top even on a site with no safety adviser: the authority belongs to whoever is closest to the work, and moving that lane down the page is usually the first sign a procedure has drifted.

2. Write down what counts as a stop

   Say in words what triggers a stop rather than a conversation: an unsafe act, an unsafe condition, a control missing or defeated, a job that has changed from the one that was briefed. Then add the sentence people need most, that a stop made in good faith is right even when the hazard turns out not to have been real, and say it at induction rather than only in the procedure.

3. Name who must be told, and how

   "Stop the work and warn those affected" needs a real list behind it: the crew on the job, the neighbouring crews the hazard reaches, the person in charge of the area, the control room, and on a shared site the other employers' representatives. Write down the means as well as the names, because a radio, a tannoy and a shouted warning cover very different distances.

4. Set the escalation route and a time on it

   "Fixable within the crew's control?" only works if the crew know what is theirs to fix. State the cost, the time and the risk level above which the job goes to the site manager and EHS, name a deputy for nights and weekends, and put a clock on the escalation so a job does not sit stopped for a whole shift waiting for somebody to answer a phone.

5. Make the resumption gate explicit

   This is the step most procedures leave vague. Decide who signs the restart and record that the person who stopped the work, or their supervisor where they have gone off shift, has agreed the hazard is controlled. Where you work under a regime that names an ultimate work authority for the facility, put that role in the box and keep the agreement step in front of it.

6. Say what protects the person who stopped

   Write the no-retaliation commitment where people will actually read it, and name who receives a complaint if it happens, which must not be the manager whose schedule the stop cost. ISO 45001 clause 7.3 asks that workers be made aware both of their ability to remove themselves from imminent and serious danger and of the arrangements protecting them from undue consequences, so put both in the induction.

7. Walk it against two real stops

   Take two stops from the last quarter, one settled at the job and one that went to the site manager, and trace both through the chart with the people who were there. Any step somebody describes that is not drawn, or drawn but skipped on the day, is the finding worth acting on before you publish it, along with any box nobody can name an owner for.

Frequently asked questions

What are the steps in a stop work authority process?

Someone observes an unsafe condition or act, stops the work, warns the people the hazard reaches and makes the area safe or withdraws from it. The supervisor accepts the stop without challenge, and where a contractor crew is involved their representative is briefed so the stop is not quietly overridden by their own line. The job is then walked with whoever stopped it. If the hazard is agreed, the crew either applies a control at source or escalates it to the site manager; if it is disputed, EHS rules on it while the job stays stopped. Escalated hazards are tested against elimination first, then against an interim control with a review date, and a hazard that is neither leaves the job stopped and re-planned. Work resumes only once the person who stopped it agrees, the resumption is authorised in writing, the crew is re-briefed and the stop is logged. Afterwards the person is thanked and any detriment investigated.

Who actually holds stop work authority?

Everyone on the site, which is the point of the word authority rather than duty. It is normally written to cover employees, agency staff, contractors and visitors, and to apply whether or not the person holding it fully understands the job they are stopping: the new starter who thinks the load looks wrong is exactly who the authority exists for. Two things make it real. It needs no permission, so nobody has to find a supervisor before stopping. And a stop is treated as correct when it is made in good faith, even where the hazard turns out to have been controlled all along, because a rule that only protects the stops that were right protects nobody at the moment of doubt. Offshore in United States waters this is written into law: the SEMS rule at 30 CFR 250.1930 requires procedures granting all personnel the authority, without fear of reprisal, to stop work when an imminent risk or danger exists.

Who may authorise work to resume after a stop?

Not the person whose schedule the stop is costing, and not the person who called it acting alone. The workable rule, and the one this chart draws, is that a named authority signs the restart on the record while the person who stopped the work, or their supervisor if they have gone off shift, confirms the hazard is controlled. The offshore SEMS rule in the United States puts one version of this directly: work may resume when the individual with ultimate work authority determines that the imminent risk or danger no longer exists, and that decision must be documented in writing as soon as practicable. ILO Convention 155 approaches it from the worker's side, providing that an employer may not require workers to return to a work situation of continuing imminent and serious danger until remedial action has been taken. Whatever regime binds you, write down who signed, when, and what had changed.

Is stop work authority the same as the right to refuse unsafe work?

They overlap, but they are not the same thing. Stop work authority is granted by the organisation: it is a rule of your own making, it usually covers stopping other people's work as well as your own, and it can be written as broadly as you like. The right to refuse unsafe work is granted by law and is narrower, because it protects an individual rather than authorising them. In the United States it runs through section 11(c) of the OSH Act and the work refusal standard at 29 CFR 1977.12(b)(2), read in Whirlpool Corp. v. Marshall in 1980, which turns on a reasonable apprehension of death or serious injury, good faith, no reasonable alternative and too little time to use normal enforcement channels; a retaliation complaint has to reach OSHA within 30 days. In Great Britain, sections 44 and 100 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 protect a worker who leaves or refuses to return to a place of danger they reasonably believe serious and imminent.

What records should a stop produce?

Four, and none of them needs a new system. The stop record itself: what was seen, who stopped it, the time, the job and the crew. The control record: what was actually done, whether the hazard was eliminated or an interim control applied, and if interim, the review date and the person who owns it. The resumption record: who authorised the restart, on what basis and when, which is the one people leave verbal and the one an auditor asks for first. And the trend: stops by area, by activity and by hazard type, so a hazard that has now been stopped three times becomes a corrective action on the cause rather than a fourth stop. Keep the count of stops out of individual appraisals and out of league tables between crews, because a number used to judge people is a number that stops being reported.