ISO 45001:2018
Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems
Description:
Employee health and safety at the workplace are a key concern for most businesses. While measures and mitigations have been put in place, workplace accidents, injuries and deaths still occur at an alarming rate. This not only brings grief to the employee’s family members, but impacts on the reputation and finances of the organisation. The ISO 45001 standard sets the minimum standard of practice to protect employees worldwide.
It is an Occupational Health and Safety OH&S management system which provides a framework for increasing safety performance, by managing and reducing risks related to the health and safety of the workplace, as well as harnessing the opportunities from proper health and safety management. The standards intended outcomes are to prevent work-related injuries and ill health to workers and to proactively improve safety and health at the workplace.
ISO 45001 builds on the success of earlier international standards in this area such as OHSAS 18001, the International Labour Organization’s ILO-OSH Guidelines, various national standards and the ILO’s international labour standards and conventions. It is designed to be integrated into an organisation’s existing management processes and follows the same high-level structure as other ISO management system standards, such as ISO 9001 (quality management) and ISO 14001 (environmental management).
Note: Certification to ISO 45001 is not a requirement of the standard but it can be a useful tool to demonstrate that you meet its criteria. If you are already certified to OHSAS 18001, and while it is a very different standard, you will already have some of the necessary tools and systems in place to implement ISO 45001.
Main Components:
The OH&S MS enables organisations to put in place a management system to help them manage their OH&S risks and improve their OH&S performance through the development and implementation of effective policies and objectives.
The approach taken by this OH&S MS is based on the founded on the concept of Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA), which focuses on achieving continual improvement. In its application, the individual elements can be elaborated as follows:
- Plan: determine and assess OH&S risks, OH&S opportunities and other risks and other opportunities, establish OH&S objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the organization’s OH&S policy;
- Do: implement the processes as planned;
- Check: monitor and measure activities and processes with regard to the OHS policy and OHS objectives, and report the results;
- Act: take actions to continually improve the OH&S performance to achieve the intended outcomes.
- The level of detail, complexity, and extent of documented information and the resources needed to ensure the success of the MS in an organisation will depend on various number factors, including:
- the demographics of the organisation – e.g. number of workers, size, geography, culture, legal and other requirements;
- the scope of the organisation’s OH&S management system;
- the nature of the organisation’s activities and the related OH&S risks.
Who should be certified:
Benefits:
- Reduction of workplace incidents
- Reduced absenteeism and staff turnover, leading to increased productivity
- Reduced cost of insurance premiums
- Creation of a health and safety culture, whereby employees are encouraged to take an active role in their own OH&S
- Reinforced leadership commitment to proactively improve OH&S performance
- Ability to meet legal and regulatory requirements
- Enhanced organisational reputation
- Improved staff morale, leading to increased productivity
Contributes to SDGs:
- Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being
- Goal 5: Gender Equality
- Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
- Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
- Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
- Goal 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities
- Goal 16: Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions
