ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety
What is 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 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.
Benefits of using ISO 45001:2018?
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
