What this is
What is a stop work record?
What is a stop work record?
A stop work record is the document raised whenever someone halts a job because it is not safe to continue. It names who stopped it, why, what changed before work resumed, and who authorised the restart. It is built against ISO 45001 cl.5.4 and sits inside the Incident and Investigation programme.
Who has the authority to stop work?
Under ISO 45001 cl.5.4, every worker has standing to stop work they believe is unsafe, not only supervisors or safety staff. The record exists partly to protect that right: if using it were ever held against someone, workers would quietly stop using it, and the organisation would lose its earliest warning signal.
Who is allowed to authorise a restart?
The template requires a named authoriser, distinct from the field capturing who stopped the work, though the two can be the same person on a small site. What matters is that the authoriser can point to a specific change, not just elapsed time, and that they are accountable if the same issue recurs.
Scope
When is a stop work record required?
This record is one step in a larger programme. Using it for work that belongs to a neighbouring template produces records that are hard to report on later.
Use this template when
- Work is stopped, or about to be stopped, because someone judges it unsafe to continue
- A new record is needed; each one gets its own ID in the form CASE-2026-000
- You are running the Incident and Investigation programme and this is one of its steps
- The stop needs a documented restart authorisation before the crew goes back in
- A linked record needs this one to exist: it feeds Root Cause Analysis where the stop turns out to be systemic
Do not use it for
- Hazard Report, which reports something that could hurt someone, before it does, without any work having actually stopped.
- Unsafe Condition Report, which reports a physical problem such as a damaged guard, a spill, poor lighting or a blocked exit, independent of whether work paused.
- Unsafe Act Report, which reports a way of working that puts someone at risk, again without necessarily halting the job.
- Safety Suggestion, which captures an idea for making work safer or easier, raised on any timescale, not a record of a live stoppage.
- Anything outside KnowSafe, which belongs in the workspace that owns that process
Compliance mapping
Which ISO 45001 cl.5.4 requirements does this satisfy?
ISO 45001 cl.5.4 covers consultation and participation of workers, which is where the right to stop unsafe work is anchored; the follow-through on recurrence and corrective action draws on cl.10.2.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | Workers must have a documented, unpunished mechanism to halt work they judge unsafe | Stop work |
| ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | The person who stopped the work and the exact time are recorded, not inferred later | Stop work |
| Internal traceability | Each stop gets a unique case reference so it can be cited from downstream investigation or action records | Report |
| Internal traceability | The site, area and, where relevant, task or job being performed are captured so the hazard can be located and reproduced | Where |
| ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | The reason for stopping and the potential severity if work had continued are both recorded, not just the outcome | Stop work |
| ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | Restart requires a named authoriser and a stated change, not simply the passage of time | Restart |
| ISO 45001 cl.10.2 | A recurrence of the same issue, or a stop judged serious enough, must trigger an investigation before restart is closed out | Restart |
| ISO 45001 cl.10.2 | Where an action is raised, it is linked forward by reference rather than left to a supervisor's memory | Restart |
What it does not cover
- A restart authorised by the same person who felt pressure to keep the line moving, which reintroduces the exact conflict of interest cl.5.4 is meant to remove.
- A "what changed" field filled with a description of the break or delay itself, which is a description of time passing, not of a hazard being addressed.
- A "same issue seen before" answer of yes with no linked investigation record, which means the record has documented a repeat failure without triggering the response a repeat failure requires.
- A stop-work record raised only after the fact, once someone asks why the line was down, which defeats the purpose of a real-time record and should be treated as a near-miss report instead.
- Potential severity left unscored because the form allows it, which removes the one field that lets a safety committee triage stops without reading every free-text answer.
Global
Stop Work Record requirements by country
The right to stop unsafe work carries different legal weight depending on where the site sits, which changes how defensible a thin record actually is.
OSH Act s.11(c); OSHA General Duty Clause s.5(a)(1)
Protects workers from retaliation for raising safety concerns, including refusing unsafe work in narrow circumstances
A stop-work record that shows any hint of disciplinary follow-up against the person who stopped work is itself a retaliation exposure, separate from whatever the underlying hazard was.
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, s.7 and s.44
Places a duty on employees to cooperate on safety, alongside statutory protection for workers who stop work in circumstances of serious and imminent danger
A UK enforcement visit will read the restart authorisation field closely; "resumed after a break" with no stated hazard control reads as a site that tolerates workarounds.
Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Model Law), s.84–s.87 (cessation of unsafe work)
Gives a statutory right to cease unsafe work and remain ceased until the risk is remedied, not merely reviewed
The restart field needs to show the risk was remedied, not just discussed; "reviewed and cleared" without a stated remedy falls short of the statutory bar.
How to complete it
How to complete a stop work record, step by step
The fields themselves are simple to fill in; the judgement calls sit in how rigorously they get interpreted before the crew goes back in.
A defensible answer names the control that was added or the condition that was fixed, in terms someone outside the crew could verify, not a description of who was consulted or how long the pause lasted.
If "same issue seen before" is answered yes, treating "investigation required" as optional defeats the point of asking the question at all; the honest default is yes, with a documented reason if it is ever answered no.
On a small site the person who stopped the work and the authoriser may be the same, but wherever a supervisor has any stake in throughput, a second signature carries far more weight and should be the practice, not just the fallback.
Score against what could have happened had work continued, not against what actually happened; a near-fatality averted by a stop should never be scored as a first-aid-level event just because nobody was hurt.
What auditors find
Most common stop work record findings
The failure modes an auditor or an investigator finds in this template repeat across sites, and most of them trace back to the restart section rather than the stop itself.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Restart authorised within minutes of the stop, with no stated intervening action | ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | Require a minimum interval or a named control before the restart field can be completed, and make the authoriser distinct from the person who stopped the work wherever staffing allows. |
| Same-issue-seen-before answered yes repeatedly at the same site without an RCA ever being raised | ISO 45001 cl.10.2 | Add a hard trigger: a second yes at the same site or task within a rolling period auto-raises a Root Cause Analysis case rather than leaving it to supervisor judgement. |
| Potential severity consistently scored low regardless of what was described in the reason field | ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | Have the safety committee spot-check severity scoring against the free-text reason during the periodic review, not just count the number of stops raised. |
| Stop-work records clustering around the same task or job ID without any of them progressing to a CAPA | ISO 45001 cl.10.2 | Report by task, not just by site, so a task that keeps generating stops surfaces even when no single record looks severe enough on its own. |
| Work stopped and restarted with no entry in the exact location field for hard-to-find hazards | Internal traceability | Make the location field conditionally required whenever the area is one where the same hazard is plausible in more than one spot, such as yard or workshop. |
| Records raised well after the work actually resumed, reconstructing times rather than logging them live | ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | Treat any record where date-time and reported-by suggest same-day reconstruction as a training gap, and retrain on raising the record at the point of the stop, not after the fact. |
Case in point
Case in point: the stop that repeated itself three times before anyone asked why
A boning hall line was stopped three times in five weeks over the same guard interlock fault. Each record answered "same issue seen before" with yes on the second and third occasions, and each time "investigation required" was marked no, with the restart authorised by the same shift supervisor within twenty minutes of the stop.
It took a fourth near-miss, this time with a hand close to the blade, for the pattern to surface in a monthly review. The Root Cause Analysis that followed found the interlock had been intermittently faulting for months; the fix was a parts replacement that could have been ordered after the first stop. Three stop-work records had, between them, documented the exact failure that eventually needed an RCA, but none of them triggered one.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
4 sections
- Reference
- SAF-016
- Archetype
- Record
- Record ID
- CASE-2026-000
- Scoring
- Not scored
- Direction
- n/a
- Singleton
- No
- Basis
- ISO 45001 cl.5.4
- Links
- Feeds RCA where systemic
- Tags
- Hazard, Culture
- Sections
- 4
- Fields
- 29
- Follow up fields
- 4
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 4
Report
4 fieldsCase ID*
Auto sequence. Format CASE-2026-00000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Reported By*
Where
4 fieldsSite*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
Area*
The area within the site.
Exact Location
Drop a pin for anything hard to find.
Stop work
9 fieldsYour Right
Every worker here can stop work they believe is unsafe. Recording it protects that right. Nobody is questioned for using it.
Work Stopped By*
Time Stopped*
What Work Was Stopped*
Reason For Stopping*
Task
Job ID
Format JOB-000.
Links to FDN-004 Job Task ID
Potential Severity*
- First aid4 pts
- Medical treatment3 pts
- Lost time2 pts
- Serious injury1 pt
- Fatality0 pts
People At Risk
Restart
12 fieldsWhat Changed Before Restart*
Work does not restart because time passed. Something has to be different.
Restart Authorised By*
Time Restarted
Same Issue Seen Before*
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Investigation Required*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
RCA ID
Links to FDN-013 RCA ID
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
Supervisor*
Signature*
SAF-016 · record IDs look like CASE-2026-000 · Feeds RCA where systemic
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
The form is the easy part. Keeping it current, routing it to the right owner and holding the evidence together is the work that actually slips.
Holds the stop-work record library against your registers, flags a repeat "same issue seen before" before a third stop happens, and keeps the evidence trail linked through to RCA and CAPA.
Picks up the equipment or asset behind a stop, so a recurring interlock or guard fault surfaces as a maintenance job, not just another stop-work record with the same reason field.
Tracks whether the crew and supervisors involved in a stop have completed incident investigation or retraining, so a pattern of stops on one line also flags a competency gap, not just an equipment one.
Coordinates the crew, rolls completion and exceptions into one view, and holds every write for your approval before it touches a record.
This template lives in KnowSafe — safety and compliance. Incidents, hazards, permits, inspections and the critical controls behind them.
Meet KnowSafe→Glossary
Stop Work Record definitions and key terms
- Stop-work authority
- The standing every worker holds to halt work they judge unsafe, without needing prior approval or fear of punishment for using it.
- Restart authorisation
- The named sign-off confirming that whatever made the work unsafe has been addressed, distinct from simply permitting work to resume.
- Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
- The structured investigation raised when a stop, or a pattern of stops, points to a cause deeper than the immediate hazard described on the day.
- Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA)
- The tracked action raised once a fix is identified, carrying an owner and a priority through to verified closure.
- Serious and imminent danger
- The legal threshold, used in several jurisdictions, above which a worker's right to cease work and remain ceased is explicitly protected in statute.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about stop work record
What is the stop work record template based on?+
It is built against ISO 45001 cl.5.4, which covers worker consultation and participation and is the clause most commonly cited to anchor a documented right to stop unsafe work. Recurrence handling and any resulting corrective action draw on cl.10.2.
What sections does the stop work record contain?+
There are 4 sections: Report, Where, Stop work, Restart. Together they hold 29 fields, 19 of which are required.
How often is a stop work record raised?+
A new record is raised at the moment the event happens, rather than reconstructed afterwards. Each one is given an ID in the form CASE-2026-000, so it can be traced and referenced from other records.
Which programme does the stop work record belong to?+
It is part of Incident and Investigation, a single case thread running from the event to a verified corrective action, with regulatory reporting handled along the way.
Does using stop-work authority protect a worker from any consequence?+
It protects them from consequences for stopping the work itself, not from separate performance issues unrelated to the stop. Any disciplinary action taken close in time to a stop-work record should be reviewed carefully, because it is exactly the pattern the right is designed to prevent.
Should a stop-work record always lead to an investigation?+
Not always, but any record where the same issue has been seen before, or where potential severity is scored high, should default to yes on investigation required. Treating that field as optional is the most common way this template's follow-through breaks down.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Incident and Investigation
Root Cause Analysis
Finds out why something happened rather than who was involved
Corrective and Preventive Action
The single action record used everywhere
Finding
Records a single deficiency picked up during an audit, inspection or check
Effectiveness Verification
Checks whether an action actually worked, some time after it was put in place
Just Culture Determination
Separates a system problem from a genuine choice to take a risk, using a consistent set of questions
Extent of Condition Review
Asks two questions after an investigation: where else does this same condition exist, and where else could this same cause bite us
More in Hazards
Hazard Report
Reports something that could hurt someone, before it does
Unsafe Condition Report
Reports a physical problem such as a damaged guard, a spill, poor lighting or a blocked exit
Unsafe Act Report
Reports a way of working that puts someone at risk
Safety Suggestion
Captures an idea for making work safer or easier
Housekeeping Deficiency Report
Reports untidy or obstructed areas that create slip, trip and fire risk
Ergonomic Concern Report
Reports a task or workstation that causes discomfort, strain or awkward posture
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- ISO 45001:2018 cl.5.4 — Consultation and participation of workers
- ISO 45001:2018 cl.10.2 — Incident, nonconformity and corrective action
- Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970, s.11(c) — Protection against retaliation
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, s.7 and s.44
- Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Model Law), s.84–s.87 — Cessation of unsafe work
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.