ISO 45001 – A new look at safety management systems

 

ISO 45001 was published in March 2018 and is set to replace BS OHSAS 45001 as the new international standard for occupational health and safety management systems. ISO 45001 lead auditor training will bring auditors up to speed not only the new requirements of ISO 45001 but also the updated auditing guidelines ISO 19001:2018. An occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) is not a replacement for OSHA regulations but is a framework based on the Plan-DO-Check-Act cycle for protecting the workforce from hazards and meeting regulations such as OSHA.

ISO 45001 differs from BS OHSAS 18001 in that it now includes the high-level structure that is also a part of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. This makes the standard easily to integrate with other standards. As a result, companies looking to implement multiple standards in the same organization will now find it easier to do so. With the alignment with the high-level structure more emphasis has been placed on leadership. There is now a requirement for leadership to take accountability for the effectiveness of the system and for them to integrate health and safety requirements into the business processes. They cannot wash their hands of the system and palm it off to a responsible manager.

Leadership also must assess the work environment and business environment and accordingly assess risks to meeting health and safety policy and objectives. They must then take measure to address these risks to reduce them to an acceptable level and evaluate the effectiveness of measures taken. The assessment of the context of the organization allows the organization not to operate in a bubble but consider measures that may impact the organization, whether positive or negative. Lead auditor training will allow auditor to assess whether leadership had effectively assessed the context.

With the new standard there is a requirement for the top management to gain participation from the workers’ representatives and the workers as well. The management is to provide information to the workers and well as take measures to gain their feedback in continually improving the system. ISO 45001 leadauditor training will train auditors to assess the effectiveness of implementation of these requirements. Worker participation will enable them to be involved in the decision-making process of the organization.

Under the new concept of risk-based thinking all those under the control of the organization must be aware of the impact of not conforming to the requirements, the risk of not recognizing and reporting hazardous occurrences as well as the need to take preventive measures to manage such risks.  Personnel must feel free to report incidents without fear of action being taken against them. While the requirement for documents and records remain the same they have both been included under a new term documented information. ISO 45001 lead auditor training will introduce students to the documents that they will need to evidence  during an audit as well as how to stay objective when documents not prescribed by the standard are not available, even though auditing the process may be more challenging.

ISO 45001 is here to stay and with the high-level structure will find more use with ease of implementation. Greater participation by the leadership and the workforce will enable continual improvement of the system.