ISO:45001 is applicable to all organizations, regardless of size, industry or nature of business. It is designed to be integrated into an organization’s existing management processes and follows the same high-level structure as other ISO management system standards, such as ISO:9001 (quality management) and ISO:14001 (environmental management).
ISO:45001 enables businesses to put in place an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system. This will help them manage their OH&S risks and improve their OH&S performance by developing and implementing effective policies and objective.
Key potential benefits from use of the standard include:
- Reduction of workplace incident
- Reduced absenteeism and staff turnover, leading to increased productivity
- Reduced cost of insurance premium
- Creation of a health and safety culture, whereby employees are encouraged to take an active role in their own OH&S;, which, in turn, can reduce incidents and increase awareness
- Reinforced leadership commitment to proactively improve OH&S; performance
- Ability to meet legal and regulatory requirements
- Enhanced reputation
- Improved staff morale
ISO:45001 shares a high-level structure (HLS), identical core text and terms and definitions with other recently revised ISO management system standards such as ISO:9001:2015 and ISO:14001:2015. This framework is designed to facilitate the integration of new management topics into an organization’s established management systems. In addition, ISO:45001 was designed to follow ISO:14001 fairly closely, as it is recognized that many organizations combine their OH&S and environmental management functions internally. This will simplify the integration of ISO:45001, particularly for those who are familiar with ISO:14001.