Statistics are not at all attractive. Every year more than two million workers experience occupational accidents or occupational diseases in various countries around the world. The number of employees who lost their lives due to work accidents is around 6300. In order to comply with legal regulations, OHSAS 18001 and ISO 14001 standards are applied at the same time for the prevention of occupational accidents and occupational diseases. The OHSAS 18001 standard, issued by the British Council Organization (BSI) on occupational health and safety, is implemented by enterprises in the country close to 130, and 90 has obtained OHSAS 18001 certification for more than a thousand businesses.

However, due to the lack of an ISO standard, the OHSAS project group was asked to revise and revise this standard from the International Standards Organization (ISO). Then, ISO started to work in 2014 and formed the general clauses of the ISO 45001 standard. However, this standard is not yet published.

The general approach of the ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System is based on the following principles: identifying strategy, linking stakeholders, analyzing value chains and life cycle, highlighting leadership and identifying and assessing risks and opportunities.

The most important feature of the ISO 45001 standard is to highlight leadership. Establishment of the occupational health and safety policy and objectives and ensuring that these conform to the strategic approach of the enterprise depend on the leadership. In this way, ISO 45001 system requirements will be integrated into the business processes of the enterprise, necessary resources will be provided easily, the importance of the system will be announced in the enterprise and employees' participation will be ensured.

Let's see what the ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System will do. With the implementation of these standards, the benefits of the enterprises can be listed as follows:

  • Protect employees from possible work accidents and occupational diseases
  • To create a healthy work force in the enterprise, to increase production safety and to increase the efficiency
  • Prevent work-related accidents and their consequences from damage

The ISO 45001 standard has an approach that goes beyond the health and safety issues in the enterprise, and businesses must take into account not only their obligations but also the environmental impact of their operations.