What is ISO 45001?

ISO 45001 is the world’s international standard for occupational health and safety, issued to protect employees and visitors from work-related accidents and diseases. ISO 45001 certification was developed to mitigate any factors that can cause employees and businesses irreparable harm. Its standards are the result of great effort by a committee of health and safety management experts who looked closely at a number of other approaches to system management — including ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. In addition, ISO 45001 was designed to take other existing occupational health and safety standards, such as OHSAS 18001, into account — as well as the ILO’s labor standards, conventions and safety guidelines.

Especially geared toward senior management, ISO 45001 has the ultimate goal of helping businesses provide a healthy and safe working environment for their employees and everyone else who visits the workplace. This goal can be achieved by controlling factors that could potentially lead to injury, illness and — in extreme situations — even death. As a result, ISO 45001 is concerned with mitigating any factors that are harmful or that pose a danger to workers’ physical and/or mental well-being. 

ISO 45001 terminology and definitions

In ISO 45001 certain terms have been defined for clarification, these include ‘Risk’, ‘The Worker’, ‘The Workplace’ and ‘Hazard Identification’.

Risk. A universal definition of the term ‘Risk’ is clarified in ISO 45001 as the meaning of this varies in some countries. The issue of hazard identification is that it is currently very manufacturing, and hardware orientated, when more and more of us are working in services. 

The term ‘Hazard Identification’ is covered by the terms ‘risk identification and ‘risk control’ to ensure we encompass all potential hazards applicable to all industries and sectors.

The Worker. There are differences in the definition of this term and various legal constraints around this term in different countries – in the context of ISO 45001, ‘The Worker’ is defined as the person performing work or work-related activities that are under the control of the organization.

Workplace. This is now defined as the place under the control of the organization where a person needs to be or to go for work purposes.

GENERAL GUIDELINES / STEPS OF ISO 45001:2018 CERTIFICATION PROCESS

1. Purchase of ISO 45001:2018 standard- This standard can be purchased through some below modes:
   • Bureau of India (BIS) office or their online portal at http://www.standardsbis.in  
   • BSI online portal http://shop.bsigroup.com  
   • ISO website portal https://www.iso.org/store.html 
2. Self review of requirements of Standards: Once purchased, organization must review the requirements of ISO  45001:2018 standard through in-depth review of standards. Clients may get help of KRISHTECH freely available online tools for understanding the requirements of ISO 45001:2018 standard & may implement it within their organization 
3. Get Training of ISO 45001:2018 Standard
   KRISHTECH provides a wide range of open training programs at different location on monthly basis. If required, KRISHTECH can provide training to suit your needs and budget. Through these programs, you can gain the skills to implement, Internal audit and manage an effective Environmental management system <KRISHTECH never provides any consultancy services specific to Business & process requirements of any organization>. 
4. Identify all legal requirements considering regional, state, national, and international levels 
5. Define the scope of your OH&SMS & clear that your OH&SMS is applicable to your entire company, or just one location of a multi-locations 
6. Gap Analysis – You can perform a self gap analysis audit based on KRISHTECH Tool “OHSAS 45001:2018 Gap Analysis” & can identify the gaps between the requirements of OHSAS 45001:2018 standard & your exist system & thus can determine the likely workload and timescale for implementing a quality management system that will help you to achieve OHSAS 45001:2018 certification. You can use this to plan implementation or brief to your consultant 
7. Implement the OH&S processes and procedures 
8.  Use the OH&SMS and keep records 
9. Perform Internal training and awareness –  
10. Train your employees and make them aware about OHSAS 45001:2018 during department meetings or other different modes so that everyone may become fit into the OH&SMS structure 
11. Application to KRISHTECH Application for registration is made by completely updating KRISHTECH Application Form & submitting to KRISHTECH office. This provides information about your organization to KRISHTECH & so KRISHTECH can accurately define the scope of assessment. 
12.  Get a Quote – We’ll give you a clear indication of the costs of gaining and maintaining certification. 
13.  Perform internal audits – The certification body will want you to audit each process internally before they come in to do the certification audit. This will give you a chance to make sure that the processes are doing what you had planned, and if not, you will have a chance to fix any problems that you find. 
14. Perform management review – Just as important as the support that management gives for the implementation of OHSAS 45001:2018, is the involvement of management in the continued maintenance of the OHSMS. In order to ensure that the processes have adequate resources to be effective and improve, management needs to review specified data from the activities of the OHSMS and react to that data appropriately. 
15. Implement corrective actions – In order to fix problems and improve the system, you need to use corrective actions to find the root cause of any problems found and take action to correct that root cause. These problems can be identified during your measurements, internal audits, and management review. 
16.  Certification audits: Assessment to OHSAS 45001:2018 is undertaken by KRISHTECH – this consists of two mandatory visits that form the Initial Certification Audit (Stage 1 Audit + Stage 2 Audit). Please note that you must be able to demonstrate that your management system has been fully operational for a minimum of three months and has been subject to a management review and full cycle of internal audits. 
17. Certification to OHSAS 45001:2018 is issued by KRISHTECH and maintained through a program of annual surveillance audits and a three yearly recertification audit.

Benefits of Implementing ISO 45001:2018 in your business?

1. All global organizations trying to address regulations and requirements from several different legal jurisdictions, adopting OHSAS 45001:2018 as the organization’s mandatory safety management system gives the organization one common standard to which all entities may be monitored and measured, no matter the differences in local regulations and requirements.
2. OHSAS 45001:2018 provides a formal structure to identify and control work-related health and safety risks to workers, contractors and visitors. The sections of OHSAS 45001:2018 identify key areas that organizations may miss by not using a structured framework. A few areas may be structure and responsibility; training, awareness and competence; objectives and targets; performance monitoring and measuring; and internal auditing.
3. OHSAS 45001:2018 provides a competitive advantage. As a recognizable international standard, customers immediately recognize a demonstrated commitment by the organization in health and safety at the workplace. A formal safety management system may also be required by customers in order to become a supplier to the organization.
4.  OHSAS 45001 is compatible with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. An organization can easily integrate OHSAS 45001 into an already established quality or environmental management program.
5.   The OHSAS 45001:2018 management system provides evidence of compliance to legal and other requirements. Transparency between the documented procedures to the requirements aids in providing corporate due diligence.
6. OHSAS 45001:2018 provides for cost reduction opportunities such as worker compensation costs, lost production, legal costs, and costs for additional manpower due to lost-time injuries. A formal incident investigation and corrective action tracking system provide better identification for root cause and reduction in repeat incidents.
7. OHSAS 45001:2018 ensures continual improvement of the health and safety management system, policies and programs through the internal auditing process. Audits identify conformances, non-conformances and opportunities for improvement within the safety management system. Annual internal audits help not only to continually look for improvements to the system, but also prepare for any surveillance or certification audits by a third party registrar.
8.  OHSAS 45001:2018 requires management review. Top level management must review the operation of the safety management system to assess if it has been fully implemented and followed, is achieving compliance, continues to support the organization’s policy and provides for continual improvement. Having the responsibility for the system come from the top down promotes greater buy-in and acceptance by workers and supervisors.
9.  Implementing an OHSAS 45001:2018 management system may appear daunting, but there are many significant benefits to an organization. By implementing this management system, an organization makes a firm commitment to the continual improvement of safety performance, which ultimately leads to a healthy and safe workplace.