What is ISO 45001 certification?
iso 45000 certification is an international standard that prescribes requirements for occupational health & safety (OHS) management system. It provides a framework for organizations to manage risks and opportunities to help prevent worker illnesses and injuries.
Although ISO 45001 builds on the old OHSAS 18001 standard, there are some significant differences. In order to meet the new requirements, organizations will need to fundamentally change the way they think about safety and risk.
There are two important parts of the standard that we want to highlight. First, the new IS0 45001 standard calls for a top-down commitment to safety. By making safety and health part of an organization’s management system, ISO 45001 holds C-suite executives accountable for worker wellness.
Second, the standard puts a greater emphasis on risk management. Unlike OHSAS 18001, which only focused on controlling known hazards, ISO 45001 requires organizations to take a risk-based approach to proactively identify sources or situations that have the potential to cause harm. It’s part of a bigger shift we’re seeing toward risk management being baked into a company’s operations at every level.
ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) is an International Standard that prescribes requirements for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system, with guidance for its use, to enable an organization to proactively improve its OH&S performance in preventing injury and ill-health. ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) is to be applicable to any organization regardless of its size, type, and nature. ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) prepared an organization, through its OH&S management system, to integrate other aspects of health and safety, such as worker wellness/wellbeing; however, it should be noted that an organization can be required by applicable legal requirements to also address such issues.
An Occupational Health & Safety Management System often called an OH&SMS, defines the framework in which the organization cares for the occupational health and safety of its employees. It represents a set of rules, policies, processes, plans, and practices for preventing occupational health and safety hazards and minimizes risks in the workplace. OH&SMS is unique for every organization and it must be adequate to the legal requirements, occupational health, and safety hazards, and business processes applied in the organization. ISO 45001 represents the best practices in establishing, implementing, and maintaining the OH&SMS. Its requirements and guidelines help an organization to establish effective OH&SMS and to avoid missing important elements along this way.
Benefits of ISO 45001
In combination, these measures will ensure that an organization’s reputation as a safe place to work will be promoted, and can have more direct benefits, such as:
- Improving its ability to respond to regulatory compliance issues.
- Reducing the overall costs of incidents.
- Reducing downtime and the costs of disruption to operations.
- Reducing the cost of insurance premiums.
- Reducing absenteeism and employee turnover rates.
- Identification for having achieved an international benchmark (which may in turn influence customers who are concerned about their social responsibilities).
- Improve employee safety.
- Boost stakeholder confidence.
- Increase productivity.
- Lower insurance costs.
- Foster management involvement & accountability.
- Reduce risk.
- Identify opportunities.
- Stand out as an industry leader.
- Gain a competitive advantage.
- Engage employees in safety.
- Shift from reactive to proactive.
- Demonstrate your commitment to safety.
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Who is ISO 45001 for?
ISO 45001 is for any organization that wants to reduce workplace illnesses and injuries and improve productivity. The standard can be applied to any organization, regardless of your size or industry.
While it’s not mandatory, many companies have already benefited from voluntarily choosing to comply. Beyond the obvious benefits of improving worker safety, complying with the standard is a way to show customers, investors, and regulators that you’re serious about worker safety. It’s also worth noting that some countries — particularly those in Europe — tend to look favorably on organizations that adopt the ISO standards
How to implement ISO 45001?
Implementing and achieving certification for an ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) Occupational Health & Safety management system can be difficult, and you might become quickly submerged by the many requirements of the ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) standard. To help make this easier to understand, the following 12 steps detail some important questions to ask about essential elements of your system.
Implementation Steps
- Get the support of management: How will you get crucial management support ‑ talk to individuals separately, or in a joint meeting? To help with the tone of your sales, take a look at this article on 4 key benefits of ISO 45001 for your business and this Project plan for ISO 45001 implementation.
- Know your legal requirements: Do you have health & safety laws for your industry? Have you looked at the regional, state, national, and international levels? Section 6.1.3 of ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) outlines the requirements for understanding and maintaining your compliance so that your implementation will succeed.
- Define the scope of your ISO 45001 OH&S management system: Is your ISO 45001 OH&S management system applicable to your entire organization, or just one location of a multi-location organization? This will be critical for preparing your ISO 45001 OH&S Policy, and objectives and plans that guide your ISO 45001 OH&S management system.
- Define the processes and procedures: What processes and procedures require to be defined to control the OH&S hazards within your organization? How will you identify all of your hazards, and the risks associated with them, so that you can ensure the proper controls will be in place? What risk assessment do you need to do? What operational controls and emergency preparedness procedures do you need? What will you write down, and what can be controlled through proper training and awareness?.
- Implement the ISO 45001 OH&SMS processes and procedures: What do you need to do to put into place all of the processes and procedures from Step 4? What sort of hierarchy of controls and procedures do you need? Do you need to work closely with some individuals in your organization to achieve success? How will you roll out the additional responsibilities that some employees will now have?
- Educate your employees and make them aware: How will you make your employees aware of what ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) is, and why you are implementing it? Will you have training sessions in department meetings, or will managers educate the employees? Who needs to be trained on any changes you have made to the processes? It is important that everyone knows how they fit into the ISO 45001 OH&S Management system structure.
- Select your certification body: It is important to select a certification body suitable for your company to get the most benefit, so how will you do this? Do the auditors know about your industry and the hazards and risks associated with it? What other organizations have the company certified, and what was their level of satisfaction? How does the certification body think that they will give a benefit to you? These are all questions that you should ask potential certification bodies when you are choosing the right one for you.
- Apply the OH&S management system and keep records: As you proceed, what do the IS045001 OH&S records tell you about your processes? Are they working effectively, or do you need to modify anything through your corrective action process? Do your employees understand what they need to do, as written in the records, or is there further training needed in some areas? Do you see areas for improvement in your processes, and if so, how can you profit from this? Find out from your certification body how long they require this period to be before they consider the management system mature enough to audit.
- Do your internal audits: Your internal audits are the tools you use to check each of your processes, so what are they telling you? Are your records adequate to show the process is working? Are there any problems that you need to fix with your corrective action process? Do some areas need more frequent audits?
- Do a management review: Is your ISO 45001 OH&S management system functioning as expected by the top management plan? Is it properly implemented and effective? Are improvements being made, and are adequate resources being supplied to the effort? You will only understand this by having a management review, the output of your management system.
- Corrective actions: Are there problems in your ISo 45001 OH&S management system you will need to fix? Did you find these in your process measurements, internal audits, or management review? Have you included ISO 45001 OH&S incident investigation in your corrective action system? Use your corrective action process to find the root cause of the issue and address this cause with corrective action.
- Certification audits: When you are ready, your certification body will send in people to compare your ISO 45001 OH&S management system plans, processes, and procedures against the required requirements of ISO 45001 (OH&SMS). Were there any gaps found, and did the auditor’s report indicate these? If so, you will need to correct them and gather the evidence showing that they were addressed. Then, when your system is mature sufficient, your certification body will conduct the main audit to compare your records to your plans and the ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) requirements. Did you address any non-conformances in your process data, internal audits, or management reviews? After some days the audit team will submit a report with their findings, including any corrective actions needed. When they are satisfied that your management system addresses the needs of the ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) requirements, they will submit a recommendation for certification.
Top tips for implementing ISO 45001
- Get commitment and support from senior management
- Captivate the whole business with good internal communication
- Compare your existing systems with ISO 45001 (OH&SMS) requirements
- Initiate an implementation team to get the best results
- Map out and share roles, responsibilities, and timescales
Principles of ISO 45001
The basic principle of ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System is that managers and employees should be fully aware of occupational health and safety. However, in this case, the productivity of the enterprise increases, competitiveness increases, and its reputation in the market increases.
Other important principles of the OHSAS 18001 system can be listed as follows.
- With ISO 45001, subcontractors and suppliers in the organization are also within the scope of the Management System.
- ISO 45001 focuses more on risk management and continuous development.
- ISO 45001 includes subcontractors, suppliers, and contractors.
- Performance evaluations are more frequently found in ISO 45001.
- In ISO 45001; New concepts such as Organizational Context, Leadership, and Certified Knowledge.