Long-Term Benefits Of ISO 45001 Certification For Organizations

Introduction

ISO 45001:2018 is an ISO standard for Occupational health and Safety Management System. The framework is aimed at helping organizations create a safe and conducive workplace for workers. Essentially, ISO 45001 provides a path for organizations to properly manage risks associated with occupational health and safety at workplace that can help create safe workplace. This management system has benefits beyond metrics and measurements. Few of them have been discussed below. 

Benefits Of ISO 45001:2018

1. Become the industry leaders - Organization stand a chance to position itself as market leaders by adopting and implementing a standard that is most up-to-date and recognized internationally. This step will help organizations to stay ahead of the competition as well as stand out in terms of branding. Sometimes its not about the perfect metrics that make a difference but rather the mechanism that the organization has set to achieve those metrics. 

2. Build trust - This Standard is designed in a way that promotes continual improvement thus boosting employees’ confidence in the organization and overall strengthen the health and safety culture. This in turn helps workers develop trust since organization takes steps which are accountable and, in the path, elevate the well-being of workers. Workers now not only look at the designation and remunerations that organizations have to offer, rather there is a holistic approach when workers choose to be with the organization. This also includes in the way organizations choose to be transparent to disclose information. Employee satisfaction eventually also takes the front seat. 

3. Efficient Workplace - ISO 45001 helps in creating a workplace that roots for continual improvement and best practices. This is visible across organizations in managing risks and maintaining a consistent and efficient workplace. An efficient workplace always is a pro for an organization since it helps manage and lower operational costs and maximize profitability.

4. Reduce insurance premium - Primarily ISO 45001 is a standard that aims to manage health and safety risks at workplace. A safer workplace means less injuries, less loss of human or property damage thereby translating into lower premium of insurances that cost the organization. A proactive work environment and periodic due diligence saves a lot of money and effort in the long run.

5. Enhance worker well being - Interestingly ISO 45001 elaborates health as overall wellbeing of the worker that includes physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Thus the management system aims to address underlying reasons too that might eventually impact the productivity of a worker in the workplace and have programs in place where worker is heard and understood. This also helps in building long-term association, boosts employee morale and eventually retention of workers at the workplace. This feature is also unlike other management systems such as quality management system which seems more mechanized with equipment’s, tools, etc. 

6. Top Management involvement - ISO 45001 demands top management commitment and lead by example in all aspects of decision making related to Occupational health and safety. It states their involvement is required even at stages of risk identification, mitigation planning, communication, etc. Main motive is to instill the sense of ownership and responsibility across the organization.  

7. Risk Assessments - The main aim of implementing ISO 45001 at organization is to have a proactive approach in identifying hazards, evaluating risks and implementing control measures. It urges a shift in approach from reactive to proactive. It is up to the organization to devise a methodology, but the main aim is to have a system that can help predict and forecast probable risks that are foreseen.  

8. Impact Return on Investment - ISO 45001 has both tangible and intangible gains, few of which might be visible in shorter time period and some might take longer time to show their impact. Some of the examples being improvement of worker efficiency, reduction in accidents at workplace, productivity improvement, positive work environment, reduction in insurance premium, employee satisfaction score, general workplace safety improvements, etc.

9. Improves Employee health and safety - ISO 45001 implementation helps organizations in improving their occupational health and safety management systems. It also helps in creating a reliable and safe workplace environment for workmen. The management system also mentions about benchmarking with other similar organizations thus improvement remain continual.

10. Risk and Opportunity Management - ISO 45001 specifically focuses on not only risk management but also on opportunities that organizations need to keep an eye on. Businesses in a dynamic environment that we live with political instability, economic situation, etc it is important to keep a watch on both risk and opportunities. This way organizations do not lose on any chance in progress.

11. Meeting Customer Need - There is competition and competitor organization will try and find an edge to move ahead of the game. At times, its not even the price that plays a major role, it’s the management system or how the organization functions matters. This includes transparency, reliability, mechanism to monitor health and safety management system, worker satisfaction scores, feedback mechanism and its evaluations, etc. There are ample stakeholders that play a role in overall success when it comes to meeting customer needs and expectations. 

12. Due Diligence - ISO 45001 has a built system to conduct due diligence atleast once annually by internal team members of the organization and every year a surveillance audit is conducted by a third party (if the certification has been once achieved, it remains valid for three years but a surveillance audit is conducted every year). This way a mechanism is in place to check for due diligence of the operational controls and overall system. In case of any gaps, same in highlighted and corrective actions are taken to restore the requirements or implement new actions if not existing. This does not check for internal operational controls but also regulatory requirement fulfilment too.

Conclusion

There are many benefits of ISO 45001 implementation, but the ultimate goal is to protect and safeguard workers’ health and safety, manage OH&S risk and uplift the overall OH&S culture of the workplace. In a way this standard allows organizations to take on the path of continual improvement journey too which is also one of the key features.