ISO 45001 Consultant | ISO 45001 Certification Requirements

The ISO 45001 standard enables enterprises to manage and enhance their health and safety risks and performance. The occupational health and safety management system integrates key organizational operations and allows top management to be more involved. It also emphasizes the importance of worker participation in the operation of a workplace health and safety management system.

ISO 45001 is a standard that specifies the requirements for implementing a safety management system. It says nothing about how organizations should handle safety. If the organization is safe and follows safety standards, then may not need to make any technical changes to how the company approaches safety to comply with ISO 45001. Organizations must have systematic systems in place for identifying and reviewing safety threats, according to ISO 45001. It is up to your organization to determine whether any actions are required. ISO 45001 employs the Plan-Do-Check-Act model to provide a low-cost and straightforward framework for achieving ISO 45001 compliance. As a result, implementing the ISO 45001 standard in the organization is critical, and an ISO 45001 certification is essential. ISO 45001 consultant brings comprehensive support in obtaining certification.

There are numerous reasons why a business should hire an ISO 45001 consultant when adopting ISO 45001:2018 standards to develop its own Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS). However, there are certain reasons why this can be a disaster for the organization. If you’ve evaluated the pros or cons and determined that this is the effective strategy for the company and decided do you want to hire the best consultant for the job? To accomplish this, examine a few characteristics of the organization before approaching several ISO 45001 consultants for guidance.

Begin with the Identify the business first. Different industries have very different occupational health and safety (OH&S) risks and threats. Understanding what is required for OH&S in the industry can help you determine the experience required by a consultant to assist the company with implementing the management system. Also, knowing the hazards of the chemical business differs from knowing the hazards of the electronics industry, thus it is critical to select a consultant who is familiar with the industry. If you do not consider this, you may spend unnecessary time teaching the consultant about the industry before they can begin to work on developing the OHSMS.

For example, one important part of the OHSMS is legal compliance, and your existing level of awareness about this might have a significant impact on the choice of consultant. If you are confident that you comply with all applicable regulations, this is not a mandatory knowledge requirement for your consultant. However, if you are dissatisfied with your knowledge of the rules that apply to you and want a consultant to identify all of your company’s legal compliance obligations, they must have experience in your field.

The consultant must understand the tools you use to do business. Is the consultant aware of the company’s particular content management systems, documentation systems, and communication systems? Failure to adapt to the way the organization operates will cause challenges with implementation.

It takes a team to implement a management system, the consultant will need to communicate with various members of the organization. This can be done on a simple basis, where the consultant meets with important process owners to identify the risks and hazards occurring in business operations, or it can involve a meeting with top management to go over the logistics of employee engagement and consultation. Before selecting a consultant, you should think about interactions with the team, including basic factors like the language and culture of the company’s employees.

The natures of the employees within the company with whom the consultant will be working are important factors to consider. For that, Interviewing the consultant in the same way you would interview a new employee to join the team will ensure that their personality is compatible with everyone they will need to get along with. Choosing a consultant that will work effectively with the team can be a vital component in ensuring that the installation is completed on time and meets the requirements.

An international standard for health and safety is called the ISO 45001 standard. It was created by non-governmental international standards committees. It was introduced in March 2018 and will take the place of the discontinued standard. Having an ISO 45001 certification, the organization may be able to show compliance with health and safety standards by putting ISO 45001 into practice. However, it does go above what the law demands in several ways, so you should carefully examine whether to adopt it.

Many individuals find clause 10 confusing when reviewing the requirements of ISO 45001:2018 to create the Occupational Health & Safety Management System (OH&SMS). Even if each sub-paragraph discusses a distinct strategy to improve, the three sub-clauses under clause 10 can be confusing. Many organizations take helps of an ISO 45001 consultant to understand such important clauses for effective implementation of OH&S management system and achieve certification quickly. Here provides some of the basic explanations of clause 10, as well as an outline of each sub-clause.

Clause 10.1 – General

This sub-clause requires that the organization identify opportunities to improve the OH&SMS so that it can work toward its intended outcomes. As well as organizations need to take action to make these chosen opportunities happen. While understanding these and other clauses, it is important to note that ISO 45001:2018 includes Appendix A to help organizations understand the standard. Appendix A is segmented into sub-sections that match the clauses of the standard and explain each. So, Appendix A.10.1 explains that organizations need to consider the results of their OH&S performance analysis and evaluation, as well as other data, to identify opportunities to improve that they want to work towards. Making and completing plans to implement these opportunities will helps the organization to better achieve the OH&S performance as the organization want.

Clause 10.2 – Incidents, nonconformity, and corrective action

Clause 10.2 specifies how a system must take corrective action when an OH&S incident, such as an accident or near miss, or a process nonconformity occurs. This approach entails addressing the nonconformity by examining the root cause of systemic problems and then implementing plans to remedy the problem at the root so that it does not reoccur. It enables you to ensure that problems that may reoccur are adequately addressed and that risks that may lead to future incidents are addressed within your OH&SMS.

Appendix A.10.2 provides more guidance on this section. It is mentioned that some organizations may have various methods for investigating occurrences and dealing with non-conformities. This appendix contains examples of events, non-conformities, and corrective measures that pertain to the OH&SMS. It is beneficial to study these examples when developing your corrective action process and to include them in any paperwork used to explain the process to employees.

Clause 10.3 – Continual improvement

The final sub-clause addresses how to continually enhance the OH&SMS for the suitability, sufficiency, and effectiveness. In other words, how do organizations make their OH&SMS better? So, whereas clause 10.1 discusses increasing OH&S performance, clause 10.3 discusses enhancing OH&S procedures. How does an organization improve its processes so they perform better within the OHSMS and, as a result, make the OH&S culture more effective? How can organizations improve the OH&S management process?

For example, the organization may find a less dangerous material to replace what it is currently using. This could be a suggestion from the supplier for a cleaner that they have produced that is less hazardous to employees than the one that is now used. Appendix A.10.3 provides examples of continuous improvement issues that could be incorporated into an OH&SMS for further information.

Improvement is one of the core principles underlying the ISO management system criteria, and identifying methods to improve the system is engrained in many of the operations. This is why we are monitoring, measuring, analyzing, and evaluating data by clause 9, performance evaluation so that we may make data-driven decisions to improve the system. Companies who wish to establish an OH&SMS are doing so to improve their organization’s OH&S performance, and the standards in clause 10 are there to give a good foundational framework to make this happen.