EXECUTIVE BRIEF:

INTEGRATING
OH&S INTO YOUR
CORE BUSINESS
PROCESSES

Organisations have always been responsible
for ensuring that their workers are not harmed
at work. According the International Labor
Organisation (ILO) there were 2.34 million
deaths in 2013 as a result of work activities. The
greatest majority of the deaths are associated
with ill health. Work injury and illness has a
human and financial impact on a business. ISO
has developed an occupational health and
safety management system standard which is
intended to enable organisations to manage their
Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) risks
and improve OH&S performance.
An OH&S management system can translate
your intentions to prevent incidents in a
systematic and ongoing set of processes that
can reinforce your commitment to proactively
improving OH&S performance. The decision to
implement an OH&S management system can be
used to demonstrate to your workers, customers,
regulators and the community your commitment
to improving OH&S performance.
BUSINESS IMPERATIVES
community how they are minimising impact
to workers health during the course of work.
Businesses which comply with and are regularly
audited to the requirements of the international
standard ISO45001 are able to readily
demonstrate their commitment to eliminating or
minimising harm to their employees.
WHY SHOULD YOU CERTIFY YOUR
SYSTEM TO ISO45001?
The standard has a high level framework
that will allow organisations who have
multiple management systems achieve better
integration and easier implementation.
It provides a participative and risk based
approach that is key to long term sustainability
and success in minimising harm to workers.
Businesses which comply with and are regularly
As a business leader, the new standard delivers
you a number of new benefits:
Embed quality and continuous improvement into
the DNA of your business
The standard contains a requirement to
determine the external and internal issues
relevant to your organisation’s purpose
and strategic direction. This requirement
explicitly ties your overall business strategy
to your OH&S policy, objectives processes
and procedures, meaning that your OH&S
management system is embedded within your
business rather than existing as a sub-system
which can be managed independently.

The way in which work is conducted and what is a

audited to the requirements of the international
defined as a workplace has changed significantly
due to advances in technology. These changes
standard ISO45001, are able to readily
not only impact on workers physically but also
on their health. There is now increasing demand demonstrate their commitment to eliminating
on organisations to be able to demonstrate to
their workers, customers, regulators and the or minimising harm to their employees.

A systematic approach to evaluation of
compliance will enable your organisation to
identify potential gaps in legal compliance
more readily and take appropriate corrective
action, thus providing you with a level of
transparency and confidence regarding
legal compliance.
Take a risk-based approach
The standard brings risk-based thinking to the
forefront including the requirement to explore
opportunities. Once you have highlighted
the relevant risks and opportunities to your
business, you need to stipulate how these will
be addressed through planning. The planning
requirements of the standard force you to look
at how these risks will be addressed. Risk-based
thinking ensures that risk is considered from
the beginning and throughout the process
approach and ensures that preventive action
becomes part of strategic planning.
From management to leadership and
participation
Senior management now has greater
accountability and involvement in the
organisation’s management system as well has
promoting and supporting the participation of
all workers in the organisation’s management
system. You need to integrate the requirements
of the management system into the
organisation’s core business processes, ensure
the management system achieves its intended
outcomes and allocate the necessary resources.
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until 2019 to do this, but there are business
benefits from making an early migration.
• If you have not adopted an OH&S
management standard, understand the many
business benefits associated with an OH&S
system, and consider ISO45001 as a good
catalyst to adopt in your organisation.
• Allocate the necessary time and resource for
adoption
HOW CAN SAI GLOBAL HELP?
SAI Global provides an end-to-end service to
support you through the life-cycle of adoption/
migration, certification and continuous
improvement. From providing the standard, to
training and support materials, SAI Global helps
tens of thousands of organisations around the
From identifying legal requirements to
evaluating compliance world, to do better business and manage the
lifecycle of risk.
Emphasis is now placed on how your
organisation will demonstrate that compliance
with legal and other requirements has been
evaluated. A systematic approach to evaluation
of compliance will enable your organisation to
identify potential gaps in legal compliance more
readily and take appropriate corrective action,
thus providing you with a level of transparency
and confidence regarding legal compliance.
WHAT YOU NEED TO BE
CONSIDERING NOW
Senior Management needs to be involved in how
management standards are embedded in their
organisation.
• Speak to the person responsible for OH&S
Management within your organisation, and
understand what systems you have in place.
• If you have OH&S standards (e.g. OHSAS
18001 or AS4801) embedded, plan how you
intend to migrate to ISO45001. You have
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