OHSAS 18001 focused on controlling hazards. Openly sharing accident investigation and enquiry results, as well as planned changes and developments.Utilizing your workforce as ‘moles,’ in the habit of flagging risks and opportunities alongside their day-to-day work.Giving staff increased participation and consultation, testing new initiatives before implementation and building policies around staff feedback.Integrating your H&S vision into recruitment.Instead, health and safety should be seamlessly part of ‘business as usual,’ with all workers aware of the objectives and advantages of a safe and efficient workplace and empowered to contribute to it.Ī robust health and safety culture should comprise:
This goes beyond just training your staff on health and safety procedures and expecting them to stick to them. Your transition from OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001 should be designed to embed health and safety responsibility and engagement as widely as possible.Ī natural by-product of the removal of the management representative position and greater top-down focus should be a greater proportion of your staff understanding how they can support and contribute to a culture of health and safety. Issue-raising, hazard-spotting and constructive suggestions being encouraged, praised and rewarded.Adequate resources, such as the latest PPE or quality management tools, being actively invested in.Management initiating and participating in safety audits, actively collecting feedback from employees for improvement and corrective/preventive action.Frequent management reviews of the health and safety system performance.That means senior management are now expected to take a stronger top-down leadership role, driving performance improvements into action and taking responsibility for the protection of their employees.īut what does this mean in practice? Engagement can be demonstrated in several ways, including: Most importantly, top management can no longer distance themselves from the operation of the health and safety management system by simply delegating a representative.Ĭlause 5 of ISO 45001 pushes and encourages the incorporation of health and safety into the broader management system of your organization.On the other hand, divesting responsibility and buy-in to multiple employees should be recognized as an opportunity for continuous improvement.Investing control of the H&S system in a single employee should be recognized as a risky set-up, particularly for larger businesses. Like all modern ISO standards, 45001 places a strong emphasis on risk.Under ISO 45001, the role of the management representative is permitted but strongly discouraged, for 3 main reasons: Under OHSAS 18001, the operation of the occupational health and safety management system could be delegated by senior management to a representative. The role of the management representative Understanding Annex SL isn’t just crucial for ISO 45001 – it’s the core of any modern ISO standard you can expect to accredit to in the future, so you should start your reading as soon as possible. ISO 45001:2018, like most other ISO standards, has adopted the Annex SL High Level Structure (HLS).Īnnex SL is designed to simplify integration with other management systems like ISO 901 with consistent language and matching sub-clauses, making it easier for you to build and manage an integrated business management system. Understanding and reacting to the key differences between OHSAS 18001 and ISO 45001 is the most important dimension of your transition – so we’ve listed the 8 main areas to consider. Businesses not transitioned to ISO 45001 by that date will find themselves without an accredited occupational health and safety management system and the benefits that come with it. If your business is accredited to OHSAS 18001, you have until Mato make the transition to its replacement standard, ISO 45001:2018.