ISO 45001: The Framework of an Effective Safety Management System

What does ISO 45001 stand for

ISO 45001 stands for the International Organization for Standardization. This international standard was published in March 2018 and is an important certification for your organization to achieve.  

Why ISO 45001 is important

This international standard is important to your organization for a number of reasons. First and foremost, as mentioned earlier, it will help you develop a more proactive approach to safety by focusing on risks and hazards and what can be done to mitigate them before an incident or injury occurs.  

ISO 45001 can be broken down into 7 key elements: 

• Context of the organization 
• Leadership and worker participation 
• Planning for the OH&S system 
• Support 
• Operation 
• Performance evaluation 
• Improvement  

To learn more about these seven elements and how to implement them within your safety program and organization, read our new Safety Program Starter Pack. 

ISO 45001 is important because it can help you create a safer work environment with more focus on senior leadership and management commitment, as well as worker involvement. What’s more is this is not only limited to full-time workers but third-party members as well.  

Performance evaluation and improvement are other areas ISO 45001 highlights. This international standard places great importance on having the elements needed in place to measure your performance and the effectiveness of your safety program and systems. With a goal to consistently improve and grow, ISO 45001 states that methods of continual improvement (Plan, Do, Check, Act) should be regularly implemented to continue to strengthen your safety program to protect your people.  

How EcoOnline Can Help

Relying on paper or Excel-based systems to implement an effective safety program according to ISO 45001, can lead to time-consuming manual processes. This can take time away from creating a safer work environment and lead to data silos.   

Utilizing a digital safety solution to help centralize all information within one cloud-based platform, can give you 360-degree visibility into your safety program. This makes it easier to spot gaps and deficiencies, and communicate them to the necessary stakeholders, to prioritize mitigating hazards and risks. It also helps streamline communication between different team members across your organization. 

A digital solution can also help provide robust safety data so you can identify trends and patterns. Easily track safety KPIs, leading and lagging indicators, and more to make data-driven decisions to effectively mitigate risks and hazards. And that’s just the beginning!  

To learn more about how the EcoOnline suite of safety solutions can help you strengthen your safety program and protect your people, speak to one of our EcoOnline representatives today.