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 labour standards and con­ven­tions.

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The final version of ISO 45001 was released on March 12, 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 UK. Each or­gan­isa­tion 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 favour 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 or­gan­isa­tions.
February 2015 The work group publishes a second, revised committee draft, which in turn is examined by the national standards or­gan­isa­tions.
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 favour 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 12th March 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 or­gan­isa­tions and busi­nesses of all sizes and types provide safe work­places, whether they are a non-profit or­gan­isa­tion, a ministry, a micro en­ter­prise, or a global con­glom­er­ate.

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As a result of the high-level structure, which is basically a stand­ard­ised 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 or­gan­isa­tion 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 analysed, and optimised or main­tained. Then the PDCA cycle starts again from the beginning.

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

Context of the or­gan­iz­a­tion (Chapter 4) The context of companies or or­gan­isa­tions 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 real­isa­tion, 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 analyse whether re­quire­ments have been met, risks minimised, 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 or­gan­isa­tion or a company is to initiate ap­pro­pri­ate cor­rect­ive or im­prove­ment measures. In order to achieve maximum op­tim­isa­tion, 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 or­gan­isa­tions 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 or­gan­isa­tions 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 or­gan­isa­tions 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 or­gan­isa­tion.
  • 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 or­gan­isa­tion, 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.

Please note the legal dis­claim­er relating to this article.

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