Session No.1 Introduction

Session No.1 Introduction

Earlier OHSAS 18001:2007 (Occupational Health & Safety Assessment Series) was published by British Standards and was not an ISO standard and was globally used till 2018, as there was no exclusive management system standard published by ISO for OHS Management System. Existing ISO 45001:2018 standard is being prepared by Project Committee ISO / PC 283 and so now it is ISO standard and it replaces old OHSAS 18001:2007 standard.

All organizations that have OHSAS 18001:2007 Certificate will become obsolete after 3 years of the publication of the existing ISO 45001:2018.Exisiting ISO 45001:2018 was published in March 2018 and hence OHSAS 18001:2007Certificate will be obsolete in March 2021.

We all know that any organization is responsible for occupational health & safety of its employees and others who can be affected by the activities / processes of the organization.

The responsibility of any organization includes promoting and protecting physical and mental health of its employees. Thus if any organization adopts an OHS Management System then it is expected that the organization provides safe and healthy workplaces, prevent work related injury and ill health and continually improve OHS performance of its own.

The purpose of adoption of an OHS Management system is to provide framework for managing OHS Risks and improving opportunities to avoid any incidents, minimizing OHS Risks, Eliminating OHS Hazards, Emergency situations and above all safe guarding the LIFE of its employees and others as appropriate, at least when they  are in the vicinity of the organization.

And we all know that any organization is nothing but group of persons working for it. So if the OHS performance improvement is required for any organization, it means that if all its employees and others are WELL AWARE about incident / Hazard / Risks and if they implement OHS Management System as per ISO 45001:2018,then automatically Accidents/Ill Health / Injury / Emergency Situations and any probable fatality can be avoided successfully.

Any organization that adopts and wish to demonstrate conformity to ISO 45001:2018 can do so by:

  1. Making a Self –Declaration;
  2. Being audited by its customers;
  3. Being audited by an external organization like ENA Business Excellence Solutions LLP (www.enabes.com )
  4. Seeking Certification from a Reputed Certification Agency like LRQA,BSI,DNV-GL,BV,SGS,DQS who is accredidated by IAF / ISO.

As per ISO 45001:2018, following words are used in the standard:

  1. SHALL indicates a Requirement;
  2. SHOULD indicates a recommendation;
  3. MAY indicates a permission;
  4. CAN indicates a possibility;
  5. NOTE indicates guidance in understanding and brief explanation;
  6. ANNEX indicates detailed information and Guidance on the use.

The success of Continual Improvement in OHS Management System as per ISO 45001:2018 depends upon number of key factors including:

  1. Leadership, Commitment, responsibility and accountability of the Top Management;
  2. Developing, leading and promoting culture of continual improvement of OHS Performance by the Top Management;
  3. Internal and External Communication;
  4. Consultation and participation of managerial and non managerial employees;
  5. Availability and allocation of necessary resources;
  6. OHS Policy in line with the strategic direction and business process;
  7. Effective Methodology for identifying hazards, controlling risks and opportunities for continual improvements in OHS Performance in line with OHS Objectives;
  8. Legal and contractual compliance;
  9. Repetitive training sessions of ALL the employees related to ISO 45001:2018 like Awareness, Documentation and Implementation, Internal Auditor, Lead Implementer, HIRA, Legal compliance, OHS Objectives, Risk based thinking and PDCA;
  10.  Conducting Internal Audits REGULARLY;
  11. Conducting Management Review REGULARLY.
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