How to avoid the safety catch27 August 2014

A forthcoming occupational health and safety management standard is set to help cut the awful toll of death and injury on Britain's factory floors, says Ian Vallely.

In the last year, 133 people were killed at work with a further 78,000 reporting serious workplace accidents. On top of this, there were 175,000 over-seven-day absence injuries. And, piling on further misery, around 13,000 deaths each year can be attributed to work-related diseases.

These alarming figures add up to an overwhelmingly strong ethical case to take occupational health and safety seriously. But creating a safe and healthy working environment is more than a moral imperative. As well as the legal requirements, there are strong business arguments for it too (see later).
This, however, begs a fundamental question: What can you do to help make your shopfloor safer and healthier?

One answer is to apply effective management standards in your workplace. Currently, you can use BS OHSAS 18001, a British Standard that sets out the minimum requirements for occupational health and safety management good practice. There is also an American standard – ANSI Z10-2012 – which does pretty much the same thing.

However, neither is accepted all around the world. Nor do they conform to the format and structure of other standards that are familiar in many UK factories such as ISO 9001 for quality management and ISO 14001 for environmental management.

To rectify this, in October last year, the International Standards Organisation (ISO) began to develop a global standard for health and safety management systems and ISO 45001 was born. It is intended to replace BS OHSAS 18001 in the UK towards the end of 2016.

The British Standards Institution expects ISO 45001 to appeal to any business that wants to:
• Establish and implement an internationally recognised occupational health and safety management system to reduce or minimise risks to personnel and other relevant parties.
• Maintain and constantly improve their health and safety performance.
• Keep all operations in line with their stated health and safety policies to an internationally recognised standard.

A global management standard for occupational health and safety makes perfect sense to Mike Slater, president of BOHS, the Chartered Society for Worker Health Protection. He says: "Many companies make an effort to manage their health and safety. However, if they are doing it in an ad hoc way they will, of course, be less effective than if they do it methodically…

"ISO 45001 will make a systematic approach possible because it provides the structure and the tools to implement an effective health and safety system."

There will be several differences between the existing BS OHSAS 18001 and the new ISO 45001. For example, the latter will be more closely aligned with ISO 9001, 14001 and other management system standards. To achieve this, ISO 45001's layout will comply with ISO's 'Annex SL' structure and format.

Annex SL is a framework for a generic management system which will, in future, be used as the basis for all management system standards including those for quality, environment, information security and business continuity. By employing the same structure, as well as commonly used terms and definitions, Annex SL will make it easier, less time consuming and consequently cheaper to implement, integrate and maintain ISO standards. It will also help streamline the creation of new ones and make it easier to introduce multiple standards in a single company.

So what will be the benefits of implementing ISO 45001 when it does finally arrive? For Richard Jones, head of policy and public affairs at the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), this type of certification helps companies demonstrate their health and safety credentials to all their key stakeholders: "These can include the regulators, their investors, their customers, their clients, their insurers (and there is a hint that insurers may offer reduced premiums if you have a certificated standard) and, of course, their employees and the public.

"Having an effective and certificated management system helps ensure you manage your health and safety risks and will help improve your business's reputation and sustainability."

ISO 45001 also has the potential to save lives, reduce workplace accidents and illness (which will cut related costs and downtime), and improve employee morale.

BOHS's Slater points to another benefit of adopting management standards like ISO 45001 – they enable the company to benchmark itself: "Auditors can sometimes be seen as a real pain, but if the audit is done well it can actually help companies become aware of what's going on elsewhere and what best practice involves."

So ISO 45001 has plenty of solid business advantages, but what about the drawbacks? Slater again: "There are obviously costs involved – the direct cost of implementation and the indirect costs such as management time. There are also the costs of maintaining it."

However, he adds, it is possible to self-certify: "This is a particularly appropriate for smaller organisations. The standard can provide a framework for them which they can work to. They don't necessarily have to get somebody else's rubber stamp."

There is, however, a significant potential problem with the way you implement ISO 45001. Slater explains: "One of the big downsides of any management system, in my view, is that it can become bureaucratic and an end in itself rather than a means to an end. When that happens, you get managers concentrating on passing an audit rather than managing risk."

He also warns against over-complicating the process: "Companies quite often think they need very complex documentation. In reality, that isn't necessarily the case. The simpler you can make it, the better and the more effective it is likely to be. You don't want to start writing procedures just for the sake of it. Companies often have procedures in place that are quite adequate; they just need minor adjustments to make them comply with the standard."

For IOSH's Jones there will clearly be costs both in time and resources involved in achieving and maintaining the standard: "However, the process means that businesses can learn and improve their health and safety risk management systems, with all the associated benefits that brings. Most organisations that gain certification, I think, feel the benefits of better management. Reducing health and safety incidents and increasing your attractiveness to clients will outweigh the costs."

With the final version of ISO45001 two years away there is plenty of time to prepare. Besides, there will be a transition period for organisations certified to the existing OHSAS 18001 standard to change over.

Jones foresees few problems with this: "I think that converting from OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001 will be fairly straightforward. I don't envisage there being huge differences in them. If companies are already certificated to OHSAS they will already have an accredited certification body that audits them and that organisation will have a process for transition from one to the other."

For those who are new to the world of health and safety standards, IOSH provides a free guide called 'Systems in Focus', downloadable from its website (http://bit.ly/1y3FVJj), which covers the key elements of health and safety management systems. The HSE also has free information including a guide called 'Managing for health and safety' (http://bit.ly/1oNqYHl).

For more information, visit:

ISO 45001
• http://bit.ly/U5cg3a
• http://bit.ly/1lwg8Vo

Annex SL
• http://bit.ly/1oGtqNX
• http://bit.ly/1kIgggQ

Implementing the new standard
If you are starting from scratch, you will need to take several actions to get certificated to ISO 45001. Start by looking at the standard and its associated implementation guide, when they are published, to determine how much work you will need to undertake.

You might want to seek advice on how to do this from a suitably qualified and experienced health and safety professional. IOSH has worked with the Health and Safety Executive and others to create the first-ever government-recognised website register of occupational safety and health consultants – OSHCR (http://www.oshcr.org).

IOSH's Jones takes up the story: "Once you have all the elements of the system in place, you will need to conduct a 'gap analysis' to determine how close your company's system is to being able to achieve certification. This can either be performed by a suitable external auditor appointed by you, or an internal auditor if your organisation has someone with the necessary competencies."

Once the gap analysis is complete, you will need to implement any audit recommendations and then apply for certification audit by a UKAS-accredited certification body (http://bit.ly/1waP2Fb).

If you are successful in passing the audit, you become certified to the standard for three years.
Jones again: "All elements of the system need to be tested on a three-year cycle so there are annual audits of specific elements so that, over the course of three years, the entire process has been checked."

Like any other management system, ISO 45001 will demand that organisations are able to demonstrate that they know what legislation applies to them and that they have systems in place to ensure compliance.

Once the standard is achieved it must be maintained so the organisation will be subject to regular audits not only to ensure continued attainment of the standard, but also continual improvement.

Jones concludes: "Certification is better viewed as the start of an ongoing improvement process and not the end."

Ian Vallely

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