What are the new requirements for risks and opportunities according to ISO 45001 Certifications?

With the release of ISO 45001, there are new requirements for assessing risks and opportunities in the ISO 45001 Occupational Health & Safety Management System (OH&SMS)So, how does this differ from the previous necessities for assessing hazards and risks in OHSAS 18001, and are these necessities still within the standard? In short, these necessities in ISO 45001 certifications cover 2 different types of risk for the individual processes and also the overall OH&SMS, and both assessments are required for a good OH&SMS.

What is required for hazards and risks?

The previously existing necessities within the OHSAS 18001:2007 standard were quite simply written, even if the task was rather massive. In brief, for all of your activities, processes and work areas, you must identify what hazards exist for the occupational health and safety of all involved (including contractors and visitors). Once these hazards were identified, you would then identify what risks exist for the hazards and what controls you needed to put in place to mitigate the risks present.

For eg, if you had a big machine, you would possibly determine that there is a pinch point hazard when the machine was running. The risk of this pinch point could be an injury to any worker, contractor or visitor who put their hand in the way of the machine while it was running. To mitigate this risk, you could put a guard in place to prevent hands from entering the pinch point and have a lock out/tag-out procedure to ensure that the machine could not run without the guard in place during maintenance.

The requirements to assess risks of the processes are still part of the planning for the ISO 45001 Occupational Health & Safety Management System. Controlling the risk from your processes is an important part of ensuring the health and safety of people within your facilities. As the backbone of the OH&SMS, this assessment of the hazards and risks posed by the organization’s activities is still a critical part of what is needed to improve occupational health & safety performance.

What do you need to think about new conditions for assessing the risks and opportunities?

Along with the higher than needs, there are new conditions for assessing the risks and opportunities of the overall general activity & Safety Management System. These new needs come from the standard ISO format for all management systems, known as Annex SL. This format includes the assessment of the context of the organization concerning the purpose of the management system, including the internal and external issues that affect it. The next step within the standard is to spot all of the interested parties for your management system, and what their needs and expectations are.

Finally, taking these problems, interested parties, and expectations into thought, the organization’s should assess what risks and opportunities exist for the organization’s concerning the management system.

For the ISO 45001 Occupational Health & Safety Management System this implies  the risks and opportunities that would have an effect on the company’s ability to reinforce  OH&S performance, fulfill compliance obligations and achieve OH&S objectives.Many companies have a strategic planning function that addresses these requirements of the standard.

 If you have more than one management system in place (such as a quality management system or environmental management system), this same process can be used for all of them.

ISO 45001:2018 certifications risks & opportunities - The new requirements

For instance, as part of your ongoing assessment of legal requirements, you may have learned that there is an upcoming change in the law that will make it illegal to use a certain cancer-causing chemical that is needed for creating your product. As this is the case, you have an opportunity to make changes to your product that allow you to find a replacement chemical that is less hazardous to the occupational health & safety of your workforce. There is also a risk that the replacement chemical is more hazardous to the people who need to use it. It is these risks and opportunities that you will need to address.

Likewise, if you identify that an organization is introducing a replacement kind of machine guard that may build it a lot of easier to prevent accidents you'll begin investigation however this could be incorporated into your machinery ahead of the govt approval for the product. You would not install the new guard, but instead, begin the method so it may be more quickly implemented once the approval for the guard was granted.

Risk and Opportunity Assessment: a crucial a part of OH&SMS

Any company that has implemented an Occupational Health & Safety Management System knows that the Assessment of risks and determining what has to be done regarding them has forever been a region of the ISO 45001 Occupational Health & Safety Management System, and this has not modified. The only real change is to incorporate an extra focus for the necessary task of risk assessment, and therefore the assessment of opportunities that will be pursued to benefit your company, which can help you with OH&S improvement.

For more information about ISO 45001Certification and the role, we can play in your efforts to achieve certification to it, feel free to contact us. To get started with the certification process, you can also request a quote.