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DIN EN ISO 45001:2018-06 occupational health and safety

Occupational diseases and accidents at work as economic risk factors

The digital era often gives the false impression that accidents at work and work-related health defects might very likely be matters of the past. However, the issues with those grave accidents of the industrial era have merely undergone changes: Nowadays, it’s rather the risks of psychological conditions or long-term problems which cause increased sickness rates in organizations and can, thus have direct economic consequences. Especially, typical office jobs and many modern service-oriented professions are evidently very prone to occupational diseases resulting in direct economic outcomes.

And such impacts are often considerable. It’s not just the sickness levels as such but also increasing early retirement schemes and rising insurance premiums that will make it especially difficult for small and medium-sized companies to plan their very own personnel growth in the long term. So, health and safety are no mere buzzwords anymore. Rather, they are tangible economic factors.

Today, standard DIN ISO 45001 provides a tool which can be quite well integrated into operational practice in order to be able to make sure of health and safety on the one hand and of economic considerations on the other hand.

An overview of ISO 45001

Like all the modern standards, ISO 45001 also has a high-level structure and many things in common with other popular standards, like ISO 9001 or the environmental management standard 14001. Accordingly, ISO 45001 is also centered on the tried and tested PDCA principle (of planning, doing, checking and acting). Aside from planning specific health and safety measures, supportive and general requirements are also focused on. For example, getting protective gear does not relieve anyone from taking further measures, like, for example, engaging in training and communication in order to create awareness for safety-related issues.

Contrarily to the previous health and safety standard (OHSAS 18001), ISO 45001 will also involve management levels more strongly when it comes down to actual responsibility. Their jobs are not just about creating awareness of health and safety matters but also about taking specific action as well as controlling and steadily improving the measures that are implemented.

Advantages of an ISO 45001 certification

As weird as it may seem with regard to our thoroughly regulated German economy, health and safety are not tantamount to any specific and directly imposed regulations and thus, obtaining a certification according to ISO 45001 is not mandatory either. However, getting such a certification will directly shape the image of the company as an employer and participant in the market in a significant and positive way. A favorable image of that kind will not just be very helpful during the struggle for the best talents but also for the general public image of the company.

Minimized sickness rates and coworkers who will remain healthy until they reach old age will provide the company with a continuity of experienced and knowledgeable coworkers. So, critical key performance indicators, like need for training, staff turnover and operational failures can be enhanced in a purposeful and targeted way and they will also have direct positive impacts on sales figures and profit.

Costs and expenditures of obtaining an ISO 45001 certification

Like with most other certifications as well, the costs of getting an ISO 45001 certification will primarily depend on the size of the actual company. But of course, the respective industry of that company and the resulting risk potential will also play key roles in determining expenses. Furthermore, the need for external consulting will be just great as issues of health and safety are very specific matters which regularly have little to do with the actual core business of the company.

ISO 45001 with PeRoBA Quality Management in Munich

All too often, quality management is solely perceived in purely economic terms. It is aimed at improving processes in order to make them more economically efficient and to simplify them as well. In practice, it is still often times too rare for health and safety matters to be placed on an equal footing with that. The great advantage of ISO 45001 is that it can be integrated very well into other quality management conceptions and approaches so that fears of incurring costs that would be too high will rarely come true. Very often, it will become evident that good processes frequently are safe processes, too. And the cost savings and the resulting competitive edge will definitely always be very welcome.

PeRoBA Qualitätsmanagement (Quality Management) GmbH (LLC) in Munich has long-term experience in the areas of quality and health management and will be happy to be your reliable partner when it comes down to all the matters related to quality, health and safety. Based on our core competences in the engineering and automotive departments, we are used to fulfilling the highest requirements and to get our clients into shape for global competition. We can also put those skills to good use in any other specialist area. Feel free to also profit from well-implemented and actually lived health and safety measures by getting in touch with PeRoBa in Munich over consultations.

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