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Published 31 Jan 2023
ISO 45001:2018 is the international standard made from the best practices that keeps employees safe from work-related risks by establishing a framework for Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S) management system. This aims to identify occupational health and safety hazards in the workplace and to minimize the occurrence of work injuries, illnesses, and death.
Employers are responsible for the health and safety of their employees. ISO 45001:2018 is a reliable standard that can help reduce work-related risk for workers such as occupational accidents and diseases if properly implemented and maintained. This standard directly impacts workers within the organization and it’s up to the top management to commit to this initiative.
Management needs to ensure that resources are provided for the Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS). Both the leaders and workers have to work together in order to create an effective OHSMS. Leaders provide resources such as time, money, and information while workers are tasked to relay data on workplace risks and hazards. Employees can help think of recommendations to reduce these identified risks. Management will then have to use risk assessment tools such as a 3×3 risk matrix, 4×4 risk matrix, or 5×5 risk matrix when making decisions for mitigating or eliminating safety hazards.
Risk Matrix Example | SafetyCulture
Additionally, this standard can help prevent costs from possible litigation, insurances, hospital bills, among others and also enhance the safety culture of the business.
Here are the documented information required by the ISO 45001:2018 standard, separated per clause:
Clause
Requirement
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Legal requirements will vary depending on your local governments. Be sure to check if there are any occupational health and safety regulations in your area and document the requirements as stated in the 6th clause. Once this has been established, identify how these requirements affect your OH&S management system and organization.
Explore our Free ISO 45001 Audit TemplatesSee how digital checklists simplify business processes with just a tap.View now
See how digital checklists simplify business processes with just a tap.
To create an effective ISO 45001 plan it has to be simple and there should be little additional documentation involved for the OH&S plan. Here are the seven simple steps that your organization can follow:
Throughout this process, OH&S can also be controlled by using the hierarchy of controls. The hierarchy of controls is a system typically used for reducing and eliminating hazard exposure. Commonly, there are 5 factors in this hierarchy as provided by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH):
There is an additional level, Isolation, which comes after substitution but isn’t recommended by leading OH&S organizations. The isolation method is also unnecessary since engineering equipment’s purpose is to do the same. Hierarchy of controls is a method to control risks. The control methods, as provided by the CDC, should be used from the top to the bottom, the top being the most effective and protective. Move to the next method if the current method is exhausted or isn’t able to reduce the risk. For example, if the elimination method isn’t possible or isn’t able to control the risk, management should move to substitution and so forth until risks are substantially reduced.
Businesses are highly encouraged to perform self-assessments since they are required to conduct an internal audit if they wish to comply with ISO 45001:2018. Here is an example of an ISO 45001:2018 audit checklist that contains important clauses that are part of the requirements as stated earlier. The clauses in this checklist are divided into sections: context of the organization, leadership, planning, support, operation, performance evaluation, and improvement.
ISO 45001 Checklist | SafetyCulture
A digital checklist makes the evaluation, auditing, and review process more efficient and also eliminates paperwork. An OH&S app such as SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor), allows your organization to easily comply with the ISO 45001 requirements. Other helpful features include:
SafetyCulture Content Team
The SafetyCulture content team is dedicated to providing high-quality, easy-to-understand information to help readers understand complex topics and improve workplace safety and quality. Our team of writers have extensive experience at producing articles for different fields such as safety, quality, health, and compliance.
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