Preparing for ISO 45001 | IMPAC health and safety

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The new standard for health and safety management systems is here – is your business ready?

Has your business started preparing for the new health and safety management system? Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash.

What is the new standard?

ISO 45001 is an International Standard that specifies requirements for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system, with guidance for its use, to enable an organisation to proactively improve its OH&S performance in preventing injury and ill-health.

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) has been working on the new standard since 2013, and it was adopted on 12 March 2018.
 

Benefits of ISO 45001

The ISO’s official briefing notes outline that the new standard will benefit an organisation’s OH&S performance by:

• developing and implementing an OH&S policy and OH&S objectives
• determining the hazards and OH&S risks associated with its activities; seeking to eliminate them, or putting in controls to minimise their potential effects
• establishing operational controls to manage the OH&S risks and the legal and other requirements
• increasing awareness of the OH&S risks
• evaluating the OH&S performance and seeking to improve it, through taking appropriate actions
• ensuring workers take an active role in OH&S matters.
   

Making the switch from AS/NZS4801

The New Zealand Institute of Safety Management says organisations switching to the new standard will need to go through a gap analysis. It says the analysis should look beyond health and safety to consider wider organisational issues, and – depending on the size and complexity of the organisation – it may take a couple of years to successfully complete the implementation process.

Safeguard reports that NZISM’s advice is that the new standard will be much more than a replacement for 4801. Not only will it introduce some new requirements – such as the documentation of standard operating procedures – but, by using a common structure and definitions, it will also integrate health and safety management with other international management system standards.

Getting started

If ISO 45001 is on your radar, IMPAC can provide you with an ISO 45001 qualified lead auditor to help with the initial gap analysis all the way through to implementation. Just give us a call on 0800 246 722.