As early as March 2013, the British Standards In­sti­tu­tion (BSI) submitted a proposal to the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Stan­dard­iza­tion (ISO) to develop an in­ter­na­tion­al standard for the re­quire­ments of oc­cu­pa­tion­al safety and health man­age­ment systems. Almost five years later, the final result was presented in the form of the ISO 45001 standard, which is now gradually replacing the BS OHSAS 18001 standard, the most widely used standard worldwide to date.

What is behind the ISO 45001 standard?

Accidents at work and oc­cu­pa­tion­al illnesses are a serious problem both for employers and for the economy as a whole: losses from early re­tire­ment schemes, ab­sen­teeism, and rising insurance premiums cause trouble year after year. In order to coun­ter­act this problem, a team of experts for health pro­tec­tion and oc­cu­pa­tion­al safety developed the standard ISO 45001. The standard firstly combines the areas of oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety and oc­cu­pa­tion­al health man­age­ment and is based – par­tic­u­lar­ly with regard to the concepts involved – on other general man­age­ment system ap­proach­es such as ISO 9001 (quality man­age­ment) and ISO 14001 (en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment). The basis for ISO 45001 included the OHSAS 18001 standard, the ILO-OSH guideline of the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­ga­ni­za­tion, and various other national and in­ter­na­tion­al labor standards and con­ven­tions.

y13oAcgFm8o.jpg To display this video, third-party cookies are required. You can access and change your cookie settings here.

The final version of ISO 45001 was released on 12th March 2018 after a five-year de­vel­op­ment process. The In­ter­na­tion­al Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Forum (IAF) has set a tran­si­tion­al period of three years for the tran­si­tion to the new in­ter­na­tion­al standard. During this period, companies can replace current cer­tifi­cates after suc­cess­ful ISO 45001 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. In­for­ma­tion on how to migrate to ISO 45001 can be found on the ISO website.

Note

The ISO 45001 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is not mandatory in the US. Each or­ga­ni­za­tion needs to decide itself whether it makes sense depending on its specific situation and aims. As a result, not only will there be con­sid­er­ably fewer legal controls: Your own image is also strength­ened – with employees, customers, and suppliers. Proper im­ple­men­ta­tion, rewarded with a cer­tifi­cate, also helps reduce op­er­a­tional costs for incidents, business in­ter­rup­tions, insurance premiums, etc., as well as ab­sen­teeism, un­sched­uled downtime, and employee turnover.

From proposal to standard: the de­vel­op­ment steps of ISO 45001

The proposal to develop an in­ter­na­tion­al standard for oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety was already accepted by the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Stan­dard­iza­tion in March 2013. The idea came from the British Standards In­sti­tu­tion (BSI), which developed the current BS OHSAS 18001 standard and rec­om­mend­ed it as the basis for the new oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety standard. In July 2013, the majority of ISO members voted in favor of the proposal by the British Standards In­sti­tu­tion, thereby giving the go-ahead for the de­vel­op­ment of the new standard. The further de­vel­op­ment of the ISO 45001 standard was as follows:

October 2013 The project committee ISO/PC 283, which was founded for the de­vel­op­ment of the standard, and consists of 71 par­tic­i­pat­ing and 19 observing members, comes up with a first working draft. Among other things, the name “ISO 45001” is decided upon and the high-level structure (HLS) is defined as the framework for the de­vel­op­ment of standards.
July 2014 The work group forwards a first committee draft to the national standards or­ga­ni­za­tions.
February 2015 The work group publishes a second, revised committee draft, which in turn is examined by the national standards or­ga­ni­za­tions.
November 2015 After consensus was reached on the second committee draft, ISO/PC 283 publishes the first draft in­ter­na­tion­al standard.
June 2016 Since 28% of the national standards com­mit­tees reject the first draft standard, the in­ter­na­tion­al session of the ISO 45001 work group in Toronto decides to revise it.
July 2017 The revised draft in­ter­na­tion­al standard is released for dis­cus­sion.
September 2017 At a meeting in Malaysia, the last open points of con­tention in the second draft standard are discussed and got rid of. A clear majority then votes in favor of adopting the draft.
November 2017 The committee publishes the final draft in­ter­na­tion­al standard.
January 2018 The final draft was confirmed with 93% of the votes.
March 2018 On March 12, 2018, the new standard for oc­cu­pa­tion­al safety is published. “ISO 45001:2018” is the full name.

The contents of the ISO 45001 standard at a glance

ISO 45001 provides valuable in­for­ma­tion on the re­quire­ments of a health and safety man­age­ment system. To this end, the standard describes the important elements and also provides sys­tem­at­ic guidance to help or­ga­ni­za­tions and busi­ness­es of all sizes and types provide safe work­places, whether they are a non-profit or­ga­ni­za­tion, a ministry, a micro en­ter­prise, or a global con­glom­er­ate.

edQuAZbLTqo.jpg To display this video, third-party cookies are required. You can access and change your cookie settings here.

As a result of the high-level structure, which is basically a stan­dard­ized process de­scrip­tion for ISO standards, ISO 45001 contains a lot of content that has great sim­i­lar­i­ties to the standards ISO 9001 (quality man­age­ment) and ISO 14001 (en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment) that have already been mentioned. These include, for example, ex­pla­na­tions of the context of the or­ga­ni­za­tion or company, which not only consider the impact of health and safety aspects on their own op­er­a­tions, but also take into account external interest groups such as suppliers and au­thor­i­ties.

Another central content point of the high-level structure is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the highest hi­er­ar­chi­cal level. According to the standard, man­age­ment must be in­creas­ing­ly involved in matters relating to oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety.

Note

A central element of the high-level structure and many ISO content points for oc­cu­pa­tion­al safety is the PDCA cycle, also known as the Deming Cycle. This describes the four-stage control loop of the con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment process, where PDCA stands for the four steps “Plan,” “Do,” “Check,” and “Act.” In this man­age­ment cycle, changes and measures must first be planned and in­tro­duced, then analyzed, and optimized or main­tained. Then the PDCA cycle starts again from the beginning.

The following table sum­ma­rizes the most important topics of the ISO 45001 standard:

Context of the or­ga­ni­za­tion (Chapter 4) The context of companies or or­ga­ni­za­tions depends on various factors such as size, industry, or structure, and changes con­tin­u­ous­ly (customer re­quire­ments, material changes, etc.). However, like the ex­pec­ta­tions and re­quire­ments of employees, all in­ter­est­ed parties must be familiar with it at all times so that a suitable man­age­ment system can be planned and es­tab­lished.
Man­age­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion of employees(Chapter 5) Man­age­ment must play and demon­strate a leading role in the re­al­iza­tion, im­ple­men­ta­tion, and con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment of the safety man­age­ment policy. For ISO 45001 con­for­mi­ty, roles, re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, and au­thor­i­ties for this man­age­ment must also be specified.
Planning(Chapter 6) Chapter 6 of the new ISO standard for oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety deals with the planning oblig­a­tions: On the one hand, it deals with the concrete for­mu­la­tion of the safety ob­jec­tives, including the planning of how these can be achieved (e.g. elim­i­nat­ing hazards, procuring pro­tec­tive equipment, etc.). On the other hand, companies should also define measures for dealing with op­por­tu­ni­ties and risks.
Support (Chapter 7) ISO 45001 describes the re­quire­ments for tangible and in­tan­gi­ble resources for im­ple­ment­ing these measures. These include, for example, com­pe­tence, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, awareness (ob­jec­tives and op­por­tu­ni­ties must be clear to all parties), and doc­u­men­ta­tion (evidence of the ef­fec­tive­ness the safety struc­tures).
Operation (Chapter 8) The “operation” chapter deals with op­er­a­tional planning and ensuring safety struc­tures. The aim here is to create the basis for the safe use of work equipment, systems, materials, etc. and to com­mu­ni­cate re­quire­ments for use as well as pro­tec­tive and pre­cau­tion­ary measures. The handling of emer­gen­cies is also addressed.
Eval­u­a­tion of per­for­mance (Chapter 9) The purpose of per­for­mance eval­u­a­tion is to measure the success or ef­fec­tive­ness of the defined safety man­age­ment ob­jec­tives and com­mit­ments. For example, it is necessary to analyze whether re­quire­ments have been met, risks minimized, or whether the struc­tures and processes for safety and health at the workplace in general have been improved or if the measures are taking effect as desired. ISO 45001 allows for internal audits including the eval­u­a­tion of man­age­ment.
Im­prove­ment (Chapter 10) At the end of the man­age­ment cycle is the “Act,” which is also to be completed in the new standard for oc­cu­pa­tion­al safety. After the per­for­mance eval­u­a­tion, the task of an or­ga­ni­za­tion or a company is to initiate ap­pro­pri­ate cor­rec­tive or im­prove­ment measures. In order to achieve maximum op­ti­miza­tion, the cycle begins after something new (with planning).

The first three chapters deal – as is usual for ISO standards – with the scope of ap­pli­ca­tion, the normative ref­er­ences (ref­er­ences to other sets of rules), and the terms and ab­bre­vi­a­tions relevant to the standard. In the appendix, companies are given in­struc­tions on how to use the oc­cu­pa­tion­al safety ISO.

A com­par­i­son of OHSAS 18001 and ISO 45001: the decisive changes

The high-level structure (HLS) mentioned above is un­doubt­ed­ly the key in­no­va­tion that sets ISO 45001 apart from OHSAS 18001 to make it easier and better for companies and or­ga­ni­za­tions to plan and implement oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety measures. Another note: The context of the or­ga­ni­za­tion or company chapter is gaining im­por­tance thanks to the new ISO standard. Whereas in OHSAS 18001 every­thing revolved around the effects of health and safety aspects on one's own company, ISO 45001 requires a manager to look beyond their own nose. The con­sid­er­a­tion of external interest groups such as suppliers, au­thor­i­ties, and partners will therefore in future be part of the mandatory program.

Note

Another advantage of the high-level structure as a struc­tur­al authority of ISO for oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety at work is the simple in­te­gra­tion into other HLS-based standard systems such as ISO 27001 (in­for­ma­tion security man­age­ment) or the exemplary ISO 9001 (quality man­age­ment) and ISO 14001 (en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment).

Finally, OHSAS 18001 is much more cautious than ISO 45001 when it comes to the role of senior man­age­ment. In ac­cor­dance with the new standard, this company must not only develop an awareness of the im­por­tance of oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety pro­tec­tion at the workplace, but also assume con­sid­er­ably more re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in es­tab­lish­ing and con­tin­u­ous­ly improving the safety concept.

ISO 45001- cer­ti­fi­ca­tion: re­quire­ments, procedure, costs

Testing fa­cil­i­ties such as DEKRA support companies and or­ga­ni­za­tions in im­ple­ment­ing ISO 45001 in their own op­er­a­tions. Following a suc­cess­ful im­ple­men­ta­tion, the in­spec­tion bodies also issue an ISO 45001 cer­tifi­cate, which the companies or or­ga­ni­za­tions can then use to embellish them­selves.

Read up on the following before you go for ISO 45001 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion:

  • Check whether the necessary technical and process knowledge for im­ple­ment­ing ISO 45001 is available in your company or or­ga­ni­za­tion.
  • Appoint a committee of experts con­sist­ing of oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety officers and man­age­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives.
  • Carry out gap analysis in order to determine the need for action.
  • Determine all op­er­a­tional processes that involve external interest groups in oc­cu­pa­tion­al health and safety measures.
  • Draft an im­ple­men­ta­tion plan.

The ISO 45001 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process is generally very similar for the various testing bodies: depending on the previous knowledge of the company or or­ga­ni­za­tion, an optional in­for­ma­tion meeting (by telephone or in person) is held first, followed by cer­ti­fi­ca­tion on site. This is followed by an audit to review the measures, which is properly doc­u­ment­ed and leads to an as­sess­ment of the man­age­ment system. If all re­quire­ments are fulfilled, the company receives the ISO 45001 cer­tifi­cate and the test seal of the re­spec­tive testing lab­o­ra­to­ry. Both are valid for three years, with a sur­veil­lance audit every twelve months.

Click here for important legal dis­claimers.

Reviewer

Go to Main Menu