Know what is ISO 45001 and how to get ISO 45001 certified

What is ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Management System?

Annually, several workers suffer from non-fatal injuries at their workplace, and the organisations do not have an OH&S system in place. Here, in such cases precisely, ISO 45001 Standard for Occupational Health and Safety proves helpful. With this certification, companies can enhance health and safety management, and at the same time, ensure cost-efficiency.

What is ISO 45001 Health & Safety Management System?

ISO 45001 is an international standard for OH&S. It replaces OHSAS 18001 and helps organisations reduce workplace risks and enhance workplace safety. It enables you to control factors that may lead to a potential illness or injury and death in some extreme and unfortunate situations. The standard surpassed many existing health and safety standards and was developed by a committee of OH&S experts.
ISO 45001 considers other global standards such as OHSAS 18001, many national standards, ILO-OSH guidelines, and ILO’s international labour standards and conventions. Globally, it is for the first time that businesses have a single framework to develop better OH&S measures. Hence, many OH&S experts consider ISO 45001 a breakthrough addition to the realm of workers’ health and safety.

What is ISO 45001 certification?

ISO 45001 certification enables you to demonstrate that your business adheres to the best practices in OH&S. It refers to the organisation reducing the possibility of accidents and breaches of the legislation. So, if your business needs to demonstrate a high level of commitment concerning worker and workplace safety, you should consider being ISO 45001 certified.

What are the benefits of ISO 45001 certification?

ISO 45001 certification offers several operational benefits.

• It is an international benchmark and a sign of being socially responsible.
• You can set up operational controls that consider risks, opportunities, and legal requirements.
• Effective OH&S at the workplace can help you reduce your insurance premiums.
• The certification helps increase employee awareness about OH&S risks, ensuring workers’ active participation in health and safety matters.
• Better management of health and safety risks not only helps protect employees but also reduces absence resulting from poor health and safety management systems at the workplace.
• The standard enables you to identify potential hazards, establish controls and implement measures to minimise risk, mitigate the impact, and ensure the safety of employee, customer, and visitor at the workplace.
• The certification enhances your ability to respond to regulatory compliance issues, thus reducing the overall incident downtime and cost.  

What are the requirements of ISO 45001?

Obtaining an ISO 45001 certification requires an organisation to comply with the below requirements.

1. Organisational Context
• Determine internal and external factors that affect your business
• Know who will be affected by them and how

2. Leadership and Responsibility
• Communicate roles and responsibilities
• Have the leadership team assume responsibility for the OH&S management system

3. Planning
• Planning highlights the need to respond to changes and adapt to them
• Establish a plan to identify, assess and manage OH&S risks
• Demonstrate the way you will communicate them to the key stakeholders involved

4. Resource Support
• Ensure you have the resources to run an OH&S system at the employees’ disposal
• Provide proper training, PPE and communicate your objectives to your employees

5. Assess Existing Procedures
• Evaluate current procedures and note legally mandatory factors
• Plan to identify and respond to risks, opportunities, and emergencies

6. Performance Monitoring and Evaluation
• Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of your OH&S system regularly, under a specific criterion

7. Continual Improvement
• Ensure continual improvement through regular and appropriate OH&S systems’ monitoring and evaluation

How to gain/achieve ISO 45001 Certification?

Here’s how to get ISO 45001 certified.

• Please fill out the enquiry form for TÜV SÜD to understand your business, its requirements, define the scope of assessment, and provide a certification proposal.
• Upon agreeing to the proposal, the TÜV SÜD team will connect with you to book an assessment with an auditor. The auditor does two mandatory visits for Initial Certification Audit. Here, you must demonstrate that your management system has been fully operational for at least three months and has had a management review and complete cycle of internal audits.
• A certification decision is made after a successful two-stage audit. In case of a positive result, the certificate is issued to an organisation.

Who should implement and be certified to ISO 45001?

Every company that handles low-risk or high-risk operations, regardless of the scale, and employees working on its behalf must implement the requirements ISO 45001 and get certified.

How can TÜV SÜD support you with the ISO 45001 certification journey?

TÜVSÜD offers a range of services that include various OH&S training programs to make your journey toward ISO 45001 certification a seamless one. Some of them include:
• ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Management Systems Implementer Instructor-led Course
• ISO 45001:2018 Internal Auditor Training Course
• ISO 45001:2018 Lead Auditor Training Course

Know more about our ISO 45001 standard certification service here.