ISO 45001:2018
ISO 45001 is an International Standard that specifies 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 is intended to be applicable to any organization regardless of its size, type and nature. ISO 45001 enables 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.
What will be the benefits of using ISO 45001?
An ISO 45001 based OH&S management system will enable an organisation to improve its OH&S performance by:
- Developing and implementing an OH&S policy and OH&S objectives
- Establishing systematic processes which consider its “context” and which take into account its risks and opportunities, and its legal and other requirements
- Determining the hazards and OH&S risks associated with its activities; seeking to eliminate them, or putting in controls to minimize their potential effects
- Establishing operational controls to manage its OH&S risks and its legal and other requirements
- increasing awareness of its OH&S risks
- Evaluating its OH&S performance and seeking to improve it, through taking appropriate actions
- Ensuring workers take an active role in OH&S matters.
In combination, these measures will ensure that an organisation’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
- Recognition for having achieved an international benchmark (which may in turn influence customers who are concerned about their social responsibilities)
Who are the intended users of the Standard?
The simple answer is all organisations. As long as your organisation has people working on its behalf, or who may be affected by its activities, then using a systematic approach to managing health and safety will bring benefits to it. The standard can be used by small low-risk operations equally as well as by high risk and large complex organisations. While the standard requires that OH&S risks are addressed and controlled, it also takes a risk-based approach to the OH&S management system itself, to ensure a) that it is effective and b) being improved to meet an organisation’s ever changing “context”. This risk-based approach is consistent with the way organisations manage their other “business” risks and hence encourages the integration of the standard’s requirements into organisations’ overall management processes.