A structured management system can support businesses in maintaining a safe and healthy work environment by offering a clear framework to follow.
ISO 45001 is a globally recognised standard that establishes a unified approach to managing occupational health and safety.
Continue reading to learn more about ISO 45001, including its standards, benefits, and implementation process.
What are ISO 45001 standards?
ISO 45001 can apply to any organisation that wants to systematically improve their health and safety performance and implement an occupational health and safety management system by creating a safe and healthy workplace.
The ISO 45001 is designed to focus on leadership, risk management and continuous improvement. The requirements follow the ISO Plan, do, check, act (PDCA) cycle.
- Plan: Identifying hazards, assess risks and set measurable occupational health and safety objectives.
- Do: Implement hazard control, emergency preparedness and operational processes.
- Check: Monitor, audit and review occupational health and safety performance.
- Act: Take corrective actions and continually improve.
These requirements also align with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 and can be integrated to form a single management system.
Why ISO 45001 is important
ISO 45001 works towards reducing workplace incidents and showing demonstrable occupational health and safety commitment. Certification has many benefits, such as:
- Increased staff motivation
- Enhanced skills and competency
- Enhanced risk management
- Improved safety culture
- Potential accident reduction
- Reduced operating and accident costs.
- Improved efficiency to Minimise documentation
- Regulatory compliance
How to get ISO 45001 certification
To get started you need to ensure management are fully committed to working towards ISO 45001 and its requirements, as this is a crucial part of the certification process.
Once all management have agreed to commit to gaining a certification, you will need to engage a certification body. The certification body you decide upon should be accredited by either the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) for ISO 45001 or an equivalent body.
Once chosen, the certification body will then do a gap analysis (status review) to assess how well the organisation meets ISO 45001 and what further actions are required.
The identified ‘gaps’ will highlight areas that require improvement. A competent occupational health and safety (OSH) professional should guide a mixed team that have a collective knowledge of all relevant parts of the business.
An action plan will need to be developed to address the identified areas of improvement and how to deal with them proportionately. The team and OSH professional will need to prioritise and ascertain the best course of action and time frame for each ‘gap’. This can be done by creating policies, procedures, risk assessments and objectives based on ISO 45001 and putting them into practice.
Once the new practices have been implemented, the outputs should be audited and reviewed regularly to make sure they are implemented fully and continue to comply with the ISO 45001 standard. As occupational health and safety experts WA management are able to help every step of the way!
How can WA Management help?
WA Management can fully support ISO 45001 certification, helping you to implement and maintain your system continuously. Get in touch to find out how we can help!