Accurately communicating residual risks to workers, subcontractors and guests is a critical component of a management systems approach to improving workplace safety. As a safety professional, if your organization sets a high priority on safety, actively managing the communication of residual risks in your facilities is part of that task. This session will explore how organizations can use recent advances in standards-based approaches to safety signage to more accurately communicate and reduce risk – all for the purpose of creating safer workplaces and public environments.
The global acceptance of using a management systems approach to OH&S is set to change when ISO 45001 is published, in either late 2017 or early 2018. The importance of ISO 45001 to the safety profession cannot be overstated; it is the first global standard for OH&S management systems and it will replace OHSAS 18001. ISO 45001 is one of the three major ISO management systems standards, which include:
ISO 9001 (quality)
ISO 14001 (environment)
ISO 45001 (OH&S)
Like ISO 9001, the expectation is that the marketplace will be the driver for companies to seek ISO 45001 certification. This means that companies and countries will be telling organizations they need to be ISO 45001-certified to be able to do business together. It's anticipated that organizations of all sizes will adopt ISO 45001 and use the latest standards-based best practices to improve workplace safety.
As of the writing of this paper, the final draft of ISO 45001 has not been finished. This is important to note because the exact words the standard will use will be critical to how safety professionals and certification bodies interpret compliance with ISO 45001 management objectives. That said, as a member of the U.S. TAG to the ISO project group writing ISO 45001, ISO/PC 283, I can tell you that the ISO committee's intent is to give organizations a standard that sets the framework organizations of all sizes can use to effectively manage OH&S-related risk.
