The implementation of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems in businesses, ensures that their daily operations are conducted within industry recognised safety guidelines. These outline not only outline what businesses can and should do to ensure the health and wellbeing of their staff, but also aid in the streamlining of business operations by ensuring that the separate business divisions within a company all work towards a clearly outlined, unified, objective.
One of the challenges businesses face is integrating their different departments, which often have their own internal management teams with unique goals, into a streamlined, cohesive operation. However, doing so is necessary as businesses with a singular vision, and internal operations that work towards achieving a singular safety culture, are the ones that stand the highest chance of remaining competitive in an ever-changing market. This is an area in which the implementation of an effective Occupational Health & Safety Management System can help your business achieve its organisational goals. This is because they work at achieving a number of OHS objectives that help your business advance in the market, including promoting morale amongst employees, promoting your business as a safe working environment, minimising downtime and absenteeism, and keeping the costs used to address disruptive issues as low as possible.
The implementation of a certified Occupational Health & Safety Management System, which utilises practices aligned to OHS Safety Management System standards, is an effective means of providing businesses with the necessary framework required to set up an effective OHS management system, which helps solidify the various divisions of a business into a cohesive, unified operation.
ISO45001 is the latest industry standard for Workplace Health and Safety systems. Building upon an existing framework of industry standards, including its alignment with ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management Systems) and ISO 14001:2015 (Environment Management System), ISO 45001 meets the international standards set out by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).
This means that your business has an assurance that by implementing ISO: 45001 standards it sets out in achieving several goals, including: improved occupational health and safety practices at the worksite, the elimination of hazards coupled with minimised OH&S risks (both physical and system deficiencies), opportunities for business development through optimising OH&S opportunities and working them to your advantage, and strategically strengthening business operations through identifying areas of OH&S management system non-compliance, and rectifying these instances to solidify business practices.
How implementing ISO 45001 benefits your business
ISO 45001 is a Safety Management System, which integrates the necessary aspects of standardised Management Systems, such as streamlined customer relations and resource management, into a OH&S management framework, and helps organisations successfully achieve the guidelines outlined in their OH&S system policies.
Broadly, it can help your business:
- Track the success of OH&S policies at every stage of their implementation, from the planning, to implementation, to reviewal. This is done by providing guidelines and frameworks of existing OH&S Management Systems with proven success, suggestions for how to easily integrate them into your existing business practices, and by providing a guide to help you review the success of implemented policies.
- Fulfil its legal, ethical and personal obligations. This is done by ensuring that the guidelines within ISO 45001 meet WorkSafe regulations, and other government guidelines, which are laid out to ensure that businesses across Australia are safe places for staff and onsite visitors. Further, it offers other OH&S guidelines that, while not strictly falling into legal obligations, help promote a safe, supportive work environment in which staff feel valued, which in turn leads to a more productive work environment.
Its framework employs a ‘one size fits all’ approach, in which the OH&S strategies it offers are broad enough to be implemented by all businesses, with the finer specifics being able to be tailored to your particular business and operational risks.
These broad business strategies are implemented in a strategic, specialised manner, in which ISO 45001 specifically:
- Builds upon existing, demonstrably successful OH&S frameworks to develop and implement an OH&S policy and objectives, in which potential risks at your business are identified, and minimised, through clear guidance.
- Establishes operational frameworks which outlines its OH&S risks, in conjunction with its legal and other obligations. This helps your business take a pro-active approach to OH&S, by identifying risks and minimising them before potential incidents occur, rather than a reactive approach, in which risks are only addressed after an incident occurs.
- Develops morale within a business by allowing employees to take an active role in OH&S issues. This is done by establishing things such as OH&S committees, in which employees regularly convene to discuss any issues and concerns they may have, which are then addressed in a supportive environment.
- Helps with strategies to promote the business as a safe work environment. Establishing a reputation as a supportive business environment, can lead to several trickle-down benefits, including: a reduction in downtime and the costs associated with a disruption to operations, a reduction in the cost of insurance premiums, an increase in workplace attendance with reduced turnover, and a stronger ability to respond to regulatory compliance issues.
- In short, it helps you run your business in an efficient manner, with well-outlined strategies minimising the effect potential disruptions have on business operations.
What types of businesses is ISO 45001 standard designed for?
Because of the diversity of what it offers, all business enterprises, regardless of size, type or activities, can benefit from the implementation of ISO 45001 standards. Whether you are a start-up company looking to hire new employees, an established Small-to-Medium Enterprise, an educational institution or a national franchise, your business stands to benefit from ISO 45001 standards, as long as it has employees working on its behalf, or people who stand to be affected by its operational activities, as employing a methodical approach to managing health and safety will bring benefits to it.
This is because the standards address the possible operational, environmental and strategic contextual changes within a business, and offers strategies regarding how to adapt your operational practices to a changing environment.
ISO 45001 is integrated to fit within other industry standards
ISO 45001 adheres to the High Level Structure (HLS) approach, that has been applied to other ISO Management System Standards, including ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001 (environment). ISO 45001 was developed with other industry standards in mind, to ensure that its content meets both national and international standards, including OHSAS 18001, and the International Labour Organisation’s ILO-OSH Guidelines. This acts as a form of quality assurance for ISO 45001, as it ensures that its contents meet the strict standards of other industry recognised programs.
An additional benefit to this is that it allows for a smooth, hassle-free migration from using an existing OH&S management system standard, to the integration of ISO 45001.
Contact Anitech Group for more information
If you would like more information about transitioning your organisation to the ISO 45001 standard, please contact Anitech Group’s safety consultants on 1300 802 163. We are able to provide you a consultation that will address the specific needs of your business, and how ISO 45001 standards can be tailored to ensure your business runs at maximum efficiency.