04 Mar ISO 45001 Gap Analysis – What You Need To Know
What Is ISO 45001?
ISO 45001 is the international standard for occupational health and safety, its core purpose is to protect employees and visitors from work related accidents. Becoming certified in ISO 45001 shows that a firm is actively mitigating any factors that can cause employees and any other stakeholders any avoidable harm. The standards are the result of health and safety management experts who looked closely at a number of other approaches to system management (which includes ISO 9001 and ISO 14001). As ISO 45001 is an international standard, it heavily pulls from other prominent standards such as OHSAS 18001 and AS/NZ 4801.
The ultimate goal of ISO 45001 is to help businesses provide a healthy and safe working environment for their employees and all visitors of the workplace. The factors that are taken into consideration must pose a threat to a worker’s physical or mental health.
What Is This Important?
Key benefits of becoming ISO 45001 certified include:
- Decreased workplace injuries
- Increase operational process efficiency
- Increased customer engagement
- Increased hazard identification
- Ensures a quality set of OHS policy and objectives are in place
What Is A Gap Analysis?
An ISO 45001 gap analysis is an objective evaluation of an organisation in comparison to the ISO standards. It is traditionally the starting point of a firm looking to improve their OHS and ultimately want to become accredited.
The gap analysis will highlight any issues or ‘gaps’ within your current Quality Management System (QMS), which will in turn allow you to create a project plan to fill those gaps. The more successful you are at identifying these gaps early on, normally reduces the number of non-conformances raised during the audit, which grants accreditation sooner.
What Are The Steps In Conducting A Gap Analysis?
The first step in conducting a gap analysis is to choose who will be reviewing the current systems and processes. This is normally done by a third party such as an auditor or consultant, however, this can be performed in house. From here the key areas of focus are addressed in regards to the ISO framework looking to be accredited in. This allows you to focus your efforts and not spend time on unnecessary areas, this is usually conducted by the project management team.
From here, a critical analysis of the firm’s current Health & Safety Management System in relation to the ISO 45001 framework is conducted. This is usually conducted through interviews with key staff members who are directly involved with the management system, the key findings are then compared to the control requirements of the standard.
Once the research has been collected, a report is finally produced, the report should highlight not only the gaps but also provide recommendations which form a priority list. This list will act as a guide that will need to be addressed in order to meet the requirements needed to become certified.
Why SafeWrite?
At SafeWrite, we have a solution that equips our users with an interactive self-assessment tool, fitted out with all the questions needing to be asked to ensure that you are on the right path for compliance. Upon completion, you immediately will be able to generate a professionally formatted report that identifies your scores, gaps and recommended action plan as your next steps.
The SafeWrite platform even has pre-built ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 documentation templates to help businesses adopt best practice frameworks. With roughly 70 – 90% of the content is already built out before you make a single update, your goal obtaining accreditation has never been easier!
Get in touch with the SafeWrite Team to find out more!
