Implementing and maintaining an occupational health and safety (OHS) management system has always been vital for successful and responsible organizations.
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and employees continuing to work through it, employers have even more of an obligation to provide a safe and healthy workplace, and to protect their workers from physical injury and ill health.
The ISO 45001 standard provides a framework for developing and evaluating an OSH management system. Using the standard along with a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle, organizations will be on the path of continuous improvement for OHSMS.
The PDCA cycle is key to how OHS management processes come together to create an OHS system and make a healthier and safer workforce a reality.
In the Plan stage, one of the first actions is to understand the type and level of risk by job task. With Job Safety Analysis / Job Hazard Analysis, organizations can readily assess risks for individual job steps.
In the Do stage, safer and more efficient work is possible with Permit to Work solutions that utilize up-to-date data on incidents and geolocation to make informed decisions on approving work. With Action Plan software, workers can complete and document actions to improve workplace conditions.
For the Check stage, organizations ensure that controls for safe work are applied and monitored. Mobile applications can be used to conduct inspections directly in the field and notify appropriate people of findings. Dashboarding and reporting features make it easy to generate reports and keep track of performance.
In the Act stage, organizations use the data and lessons learned from the previous stages to create global action plans and drive continuous improvement.
Enablon’s integrated suite of applications provides organizations with the necessary tools to follow the PDCA cycle for OHS systems management. Here are just some ways that Enablon can help support ISO 45001:
- Facilitate scheduling and completion of risk assessments, audits, inspections, and action plans.
- Leverage the data from near misses and behaviors as leading indicators.
- Improve access to incident data, as well as safety and health information.
- Increase ability to communicate about incidents and assign corrective actions.
- Use past incident and audit data to make informed decisions on permit to work authorizations.
- Ensure controls are being applied effectively using the inspection software.
- Drive continuous improvement by acting on lessons learned and implementing action plans.
