You might’ve heard that a committee of occupational health and safety specialists had been working tirelessly since 2013 to develop the first global standard for Occupational Health and Safety Management System. The new standard called ISO 45001 was published on March 12th of 2018.
Current outlook:
According to calculations conducted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) every year, there are about 2.78 million work-related deaths around the world.
This means that about 7,700 people die daily while just “doing their job”. What’s more alarming is that as recently as 2014, this figure was estimated to be only 2.3 million.
Additionally, there are somewhere around 374 million non-fatal work-related injuries and illnesses each year. Besides the horrific impact this causes on workers and their families, the economic impact is also severe.
The ILO estimates that worldwide, the total cost of work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths is of about 3.94% of the global GDP, roughly US$ 2.99 trillion.
To help companies across the globe deal with this problem, ISO decided to create a new regulation based on other occupational health & safety standards such as OHSAS 18001, the International Labour Organization’s OSH Guidelines, labor standards and conventions.
ISO 45001:
Over the next 3 years, ISO 45001 will replace the British standard OHSAS 18001, which today, is used by companies across the globe who wish to put in place a system to manage OH&S performance.
The goal of the new regulation is to provide companies who wish to reduce the burden of managing occupational health and safety with a framework aimed at improving employee safety, creating better and safer working conditions and reducing the overall risk of work-related injuries and illnesses.
ISO 45001 follows the same high-level structure (Annex SL) as other recently revised ISO standards (ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015) dividing the regulation into different chapters and sections.
This will make things a lot easier for organizations who must comply with more than one management system regulation.
Clauses:
The regulation is made up of the following clauses:
1. Scope
This clause outlines the purpose of the regulation and its use.
2. Normative References
There are no normative references in this regulation.
3. Terms and Definition
In this clause, there are 37 definitions for terms used in the regulation. They include worker, workplace, occupational health and safety risk, audit, nonconformity, continual improvement etc.
4. Context of the Organization
This clause is made up of Understanding the organization and its context, Understanding the needs and expectations of workers and other interested parties, Determining the scope of the OH&S management system and OH&S management system.
5. Leadership and Worker Participation
Leadership and worker participation includes Leadership and commitment,
OH&S policy, Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities, Consultation and participation of workers are all outlined in clause 5.
6. Planning
Clause 6 outlines the Actions to address risks and opportunities, and OH&S objectives and planning to achieve them.
7. Support
Covered in this clause are Resources, Competence, Awareness, Communication and Documented information.
8. Operation
Clause 8 covers Operational planning and control, and Emergency preparedness and response.
9. Performance evaluation
In this clause, Monitoring, measurement, analysis and performance evaluation, Internal audit, and Management review are outlined.
10. Improvement
The last clause of ISO 45001 discusses General improvement, Incident, nonconformity and corrective action, and Continual improvement.
Click here to watch our ISO 45001 webinar and to learn more details about other important changes, key requirements, benefits and how you can start implementing the standard.
Till next time!
