Occupational Health and Safety

ISO 45001:2018 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 organisation to proactively improve its OH&S performance in preventing injury and ill-health.
ISO 45001 is intended to be applicable to any organisation regardless of its size, type and nature.

ISO 45001 enables an organisation, 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 organisation can be required by applicable legal requirements to also address such issues.

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.

How does ISO 45001 relate to other standards?

ISO 45001 follows the high-level structure approach that is being applied to other ISO management system standards, such as ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001 (environment).
In developing the standard, consideration has been given to the content of other international standards (such as OHSAS 18001 or the International Labour Organisation’s “ILO –OSH Guidelines”) and national standards, as well as to the ILO’s International Labour standards and conventions (ILSs).

Those adopting the standard, once it has been published, should find its requirements consistent with the other standards.
This will allow for a relatively easy migration from using an existing OH&S management system standard to using ISO 45001, and will also allow for the alignment and integration with the requirements of other ISO management system standards into their organisation’s overall management processes.

ISO 45001 – Benefits

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 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
• Recognition for having achieved an international benchmark (which may in turn influence customers who are concerned about their social responsibilities