New international standard promotes workplace health and safety

With the International Labour Organization estimating more than two million workplace deaths worldwide every year, a new international standard for occupational health and safety is currently under construction.

The ISO 45001 standard focuses primarily on the prevention of illness and injury in the workplace, as well as effectively managing health and safety. It is being developed by the International Organization for Standardization, and the working group responsible has now moved to the second draft phase.

Many organisations update their safety procedures on an annual basis, but the draft standard encourages them to try to improve on this. In particular, it advocates that management implement an effective health and safety system, and then lead by example. This requires continual evaluation and monitoring of the system, with the overarching goal being to improve it every day where possible.

A key element of the draft standard is the concept of consultation, and companies are urged to seek the views of workers before any safety decision is made. This is based on the premise that in many instances, workers at the ‘coal face’ have greater capacity to determine which measures will be effective. Section 5.4 of the document further asserts that leaders need to genuinely connect with their staff and ensure all are involved in the safety process, by identifying and removing barriers to their participation if necessary.

Safety managers should also consider how the organisation is going to track its performance and whether or not their measures are effective. According to Best Practice CEO Kobi Simmat, managers need to be asking, “Did our process actually work to prevent things happening? If it didn’t actually work to prevent, then it is not cost-effective.”

The draft standard also advocates practising risk controls before implementing them. It suggests that providing opportunities for staff to practise potentially dangerous tasks in a safe environment is important.

Based on current progress and the latest information from the standard working group, if the current draft is approved then it could be finalised by October–November 2017. However, if a final draft international standard is required, publication is more likely to take place in March 2018.

“Given that work on ISO 45001 first began in 2013, we are now working on a four-year timeline, and the ISO Central Secretariat has approved a nine-month extension. This reinforces the importance of ISO 45001 and the significance of its applicability to organisations around the world,” said Steve Williams, LRQA Systems and Governance Manager and task group participant.

The current timeline for ISO 45001:

• February 2017 — WG1 meets and completes its review of comments
• March 2017 — Editing and preparation of the DIS2
• April/May 2017 — The DIS2 is released for translation
• June/July 2017 — The DIS2 ballot is held
• September 2017 — PC283 and WG1 meet to review the results of the DIS2 ballot

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