The ILO (International Labour Organisation) estimates that approximately 2.3 million people around the world die from work-related accidents or diseases every year; this is over 6000 deaths every single day. Worldwide, there are around 340 million occupational accidents and 160 million victims of work-related illnesses annually.
This burden of work-related harms and illnesses turns out to be huge for the employers as well as the overall economy, causing losses on account of work-force absence, premature retirements, and increasing insurance payments.
An experts committee of occupational health and safety developed the standard of ISO 45001 which is a standard for an Occupational Health & Safety Management System.
ISO 45001
ISO 45001 was based on previous standards recognised at international level e.g. OHSAS 18001, the International Labor Organisation’s ILO-OSH Guidelines, many national standards and the ILO’s international labor standards and conventions. Basically ISO 45001 is a new international standard related to occupational health and safety (OH&S). The planned outcome of this standard is the improvement and provision of a harmless and healthy work environment for employees and persons working under the control of an organisation.
Requirements of ISO 45001
Each and every requirement of this standard is intended to be included into the management and business practices of an organisation. The organisations that are willing to adopt this standard must review their organisation and develop an occupational health & safety management system in line with the standard. As its structure is similar to ISO 9001 (Quality) and ISO 14001 (Environmental), it makes it easier for an organisation to develop an integrated management system (IMS). That is, if the organisation is working to more than one of the standards.
When we look at what kind of organisations can become the intended users of this standard, then the simple answer is every single organisation would benefit from it. With the understanding that an organisation employs people who work on the behalf of the company, or it business activities can affect them, then the implementation of an organised approach to manage health and safety will offer various benefits.
Despite the fact that the ISO 45001 standard necessitates that OH&S risks are considered and measured, it includes a risk-based attitude to the OH&S management system itself, to make sure that it is effective and being enhanced to fulfill the continuous changing context of an organisation. More to the point, the risk-based attitude is in accordance with an organisation’s approach for managing their business risks.
Benefits of ISO 45001
The ISO 45001 can offer limitless benefits when implemented in the proper approach. First of all, it results in increased awareness about the OH&S risks. In addition, it certifies conformity with the existing legislation at international level. Another advantage of this standard is assessing its OH&S performance and driving continual improvement through OH&S objectives and taking corrective actions. It also makes certain that organisation’s work-force play a dynamic role in the matters of OH&S and are invited to participate. Moreover, ISO 45001 is quite useful in properly defining the threats and OH&S risks related to an organisations activities and removing or reduce their possible effects through implementation of OH&S controls. All these measures can collectively form a sound reputation of an organisation as a safe and secure workplace, offering them benefit such as decreasing insurance expenditures to improved morale of employees.
Most importantly, it helps to meet the strategic targets of the business entity while doing all this. Furthermore, it also presents some direct benefits for the organisation. ISO 45001 improves the ability of a company to show responsiveness towards the issues of regulatory compliance. The overall cost of incidents is also decreased. The organisation also gets positive recognition because of achieving a benchmark that is acknowledged at global level, which could result in new customers who have high concerns regarding their social responsibilities.
If you are looking to develop and implement an ISO 45001 OH&S Management System or include it to your IMS, please contact us for a free consultation.
