Companies are responsible for the health and safety of their workers and others who might be affected by their operations. This responsibility includes promoting and protecting their physical and mental health. The first step to reaching ISO compliance is understanding what it is and what tools can help you achieve it.

ISO 45001: Occupation Health and Safety Standard

What is ISO 45001?

Created by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ISO 45001 is an International Standard that specifies requirements for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system, with guidance for its use, to enable organizations to proactively improve OH&S performance in preventing injuries and illnesses.

The ISO 45001 standard lays out a comprehensive framework for developing, implementing and managing a system for ensuring healthy, safe and productive workplaces. The standard specifies requirements of effective systems and provides guidelines for their use.  When properly implemented, an ISO 45001-compliant OH&S management system can significantly change the performance of an organization.

Benefits of ISO 45001:

  • Improves safety of all persons affected by the company’s activities
  • Improves the ability to identify and mitigate workplace risks
  • Improves the efficiency of internal operations, reduces accidents, dangers, and downtime
  • Ensures compliance with current regulations
  • Enhances Organizational Safety Culture
  • Creates consistency throughout the organization built around best practices
  • Improves management oversight through monitoring and measurement of key performance indicators in health/safety
  • Facilitates continual improvement

According to many health and safety experts, ISO 45001 represents a landmark breakthrough. For the first time internationally, businesses of all sizes can now access a single framework that offers them a clear pathway to developing better and more robust occupational health and safety measures.

Become ISO 45001 Compliant

Implementing the provisions of ISO 45001 to achieve the operating benefits is an ambitious but worthwhile project.  It turns out that the standard allows entities to self-determine and self-declare their compliance or they may retain the services of outside parties to independently certify their compliance – your call.

The core requirements of ISO 45001 are:

  • Internal and external communication of the program
  • Hands-on leadership, commitment and participation from ALL
  • Continual performance evaluation
  • Resources to properly support the program
  • Include all workers in process decisions affecting them
  • Processes for identifying hazards and addressing them
  • Integration of OH&S processes into business processes – safety is not a silo

Health & safety management failures, performance and the review of policies and objectives should be regularly monitored to ensure improvements and business benefits are realized and prioritized accordingly.

Note: If you have certification to OHSAS 18001, you will need to migrate to ISO 45001 to maintain the validity of certification. The deadline is March 2021, so there is still time to plan your move.

How Sospes Can Help

OH&S management systems are not computer systems – they are the processes and procedures that all employees know about, are committed to and follow. While there is nothing in the standard that requires the use of computers, software can dramatically streamline the workflows and documentation required by ISO 45001, when properly selected, implemented and used as intended.

Sospes’ software makes it easy to report, monitor, measure, audit, and review items related to your occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system, supporting the requirements of ISO 45001.

Our mobile inspection app allows you to create and deploy checklists for conducting internal audits across multiple locations. It also makes it easier to instantly generate and assign corrective actions for individual checklist items when nonconformances are identified, and to be able to verify completion of actions during follow-ups.

Contact our professional staff to learn more about ISO 45001 and if it is right for your company.

Sospes’ Software

The most powerful software for EHS Management, Sospes provides a robust and secure backbone to your organization’s health and safety program while transforming your organization into a digital leader in safety.

Mobile & Offline Capability

World Class Support

Electronic Signatures

EHS Insights & Analytics

Inspection & Injury Reporting

Document Control

Certifications Management

OSHA Compliance

Safety Management

Communication Management

Regulatory Reporting

Cloud-based System

Hear From Our Clients to Learn How Sospes Has Helped Their Organizations

“I can say so much about SOSPES. This is the first time I‘ve had such an easy program to implement. I was new to Via and searching for something that was user-friendly and would not deter employees from using. SOSPES is it! The customer service from the SOSPES team has been amazing and the level of service one doesn’t normally get with software companies. I appreciate that greatly.”

“From the introduction, demonstration, cost proposal, implementation and company execution…overall, SOSPES has been the best software support vendor we have ever dealt with.”

“As a U.S. manufacturer, continuous improvement and lean management is required in order to remain competitive and responsive to our customers. This means we are continually looking for tools that support improvement and efficiency efforts. In 2018, we partnered with Sospes to create efficiencies in our reporting and inspection processes and to compile the resulting metrics in a manner that effectively drives resource allocation. To date, our incident rate has reflected a 42% Year-Over-Year improvement. While we have a lot of activities directed at lowering our injury rate, Sospes definitely deserves some of the credit for this improved performance.”

“My overall experience with SOSPES has been excellent and their customer and tech support has been world class every step of the way. That alone speaks volumes these days! Thank you SOSPES team!”

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