This technical note details the preliminary stage in the development of a postural analysis tool, Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA). REBA has been developed to fill a perceived need for a practitioner's field tool, specifically designed to be sensitive to the type of unpredictable working postures found in health care and other service industries. A team of ergonomists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and nurses collected and individually coded over 600 postural examples to produce a new tool incorporating dynamic and static postural loading factors, human-load interface (coupling), and a new concept of a gravity-assisted upper limb position. Initial reliability for inter-observer coding shows promise but further work is needed to establish the validity of the tool.