A strong Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) is crucial for keeping workers healthy and ensuring everyone stays safe on the job. However, an OHSMS isn’t self-running—it needs a dedicated team to get it up and running, ensure everyone’s following the rules, and constantly improve safety procedures.
This article will break down who you should have on this team and their specific duties.
Project Manager
ISO 45001 Clause 5 emphasizes the importance of leadership commitment and active worker participationin the OHSMS. The project manager fulfills this role by demonstrating leadership commitment to occupational health and safety, providing direction and guidance, establishing policies and objectives, and promoting worker participation.
They oversee every aspect of the process, create a comprehensive implementation plan, allocate resources efficiently, and define milestones to ensure smooth progress.
They work closely with various team members, department heads, and external advisors to ensure everyone’s on the same page.
In addition, they set clear deadlines and goals and meticulously monitor progress to ensure everything stays on schedule. When things do not go according to plan, they are there to ensure issues are immediately addressed and that others do not pop up.
Health and Safety Manager/Coordinator
ISO 45001 Clause 4 (Context of the Organization) emphasizes the need for organizations to understand the internal and external factors that can affect their occupational health and safety management system.
The Health and Safety Manager/Coordinator plays an important role in driving the implementation of the OHSMS within the organization, providing strategic direction, and ensuring seamless integration with existing processes.
Using their expertise in health and safety regulations, they guarantee compliance with legal requirements and industry standards, continually updating practices to enhance workplace safety.
By thoroughly assessing organizational structure and culture, as well as external factors like regulatory changes and technological advancements, they can effectively guide decision-making processes.
Safety Officers/Representatives
ISO 45001 Clause 6 (Planning) focuses on planning actions to address risks and opportunities related to occupational health and safety.
As the bridge between the management and workers, they ensure effective communication of safety policies, procedures, and concerns through training sessions, information dissemination, and safety campaigns.
They identify workplace hazards, assess associated risks, and propose controls to effectively minimize them. Their contributions also include developing and refining safety policies and procedures and working with partners to ensure comprehensive and regulatory-compliant frameworks.
Human Resources Representative
ISO 45001 Clause 7 emphasizes the need for organizations to support the implementation and maintenance of OHSMS.
The Human Resources (HR) Representative does this job. They work with safety officers and other partners to develop and deliver training programs that educate employees on safety procedures, emergency protocols, and relevant regulations.
Additionally, they communicate health and safety policies, procedures, and guidelines to all employees, ensuring comprehension and addressing any queries or concerns. They further align HR practices, such as recruitment and performance management, with health and safety requirements, fostering a culture of safety.
Moreover, they allocate resources for training, ensuring employees receive adequate instruction to enhance workforce competence.
Risk Management Specialist
ISO 45001 Clause 8 (Operation) focuses on the operational aspects of managing occupational health and safety risks within the organization.
The Risk Management Specialist plays an important role in ensuring workplace safety through systematic risk assessment and hazard identification processes. They conduct thorough risk assessments, evaluating various factors such as equipment, methods, and environmental conditions to determine the likelihood and potential consequences of hazards.
By inspecting work areas and procedures, they pinpoint potential sources of harm to employees’ health and safety, developing strategies to minimize identified risks, including engineering controls, administrative measures, or the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE).
Environmental Health Specialist
ISO 45001 Clause 6 (Planning) focuses on planning actions to address risks and opportunities related to occupational health and safety and assessing their potential impacts.
Environmental Health Specialists help with this by ensuring compliance with environmental health regulations and addressing various environmental concerns.
They are tasked with staying up-to-date with various environmental health regulations relevant to the workplace, interpreting requirements, implementing necessary controls, and conducting audits to ensure compliance.
Operations Manager / Production Manager
Operations/Production Managers play a crucial role in implementing Clause 10 (Improvement) by participating in the review and continual improvement of the Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS).
They serve as a crucial link between strategic goals and day-to-day operations, using their expertise in workflows to identify machinery, workflow, or environmental safety risks and address them before accidents occur. They also emphasize following protocols while maintaining efficient operations.
Lastly, they contribute to improving the OHSMS by participating in assessments that ensure that safety practices remain relevant, effective, and aligned with company goals.
Quality Assurance Officer / Compliance Officer
The Quality Assurance/Compliance Officer plays various roles in supporting an organization’s ISO 45001 compliance, which can match the requirements or recommendations of several ISO 45001 clauses.
For Clause 5, they can ensure that top management demonstrates a commitment to the OHSMS and encourages worker involvement, while for Clause 6, they can help identify legal requirements, set objectives, and develop strategies to manage health and safety risks.
For Clause 7, they can guarantee the availability of resources needed to implement and maintain the system, while for Clause 8, they can oversee operational controls, including risk assessments and mitigation measures.
For Clause 9, they can play a key role in monitoring and evaluating the system’s performance, and for Clause 10, they can contribute to continuous improvement efforts by identifying areas for refinement and ensuring corrective actions are effectively implemented.
Employee Representatives
The role of employee representatives in ISO 45001 is primarily related to Clause 5, which emphasizes the importance of worker participation in the occupational health and safety management system.
Employee representatives help with this by participating in discussions and decisions related to OHSMS development, implementation, and review, relaying worker concerns and feedback to management, and keeping workers informed of decisions.
Training and Development Specialist
Clause 7 of ISO 45001 highlights the importance of resources for the OHSMS, including ensuring employees have the right skills through training. That’s where the Training and Development Specialist comes in.
They determine what kind of training different employees need based on their roles in the OHSMS and ensure that training materials, facilities, and qualified trainers are available to deliver effective programs. They may also collaborate with other departments or outside training companies to create programs that align with the organization’s specific goals.
They document everything—who attended training, what they learned, and how effective it was. They also gather feedback, evaluate the training programs, and make adjustments to keep them relevant and effective.
IT Specialist / Technology Specialist
The IT/Technology Specialist role in ISO 45001 primarily aligns with several clauses of the standard, particularly Clauses 7 and 8. These clauses emphasize the provision of resources and the implementation of operational controls necessary for the effective functioning of the occupational health and safety management system.
They do this by providing and maintaining the hardware, software, and other tools needed to manage data as well as communicate and document everything related to safety in the OHSMS.
They also implement and maintain tech-related controls to collect, store, and analyze data, ensuring security and accuracy.
Lastly, they can also train employees on how to use technology tools to carry out their roles and provide technical support when an issue arises.
Legal Counsel
The Legal Counsel’s role within ISO 45001 covers a range of roles and ISO 45001 requirements.
For example, in Clause 4, they contribute to identifying and understanding legal requirements related to the company’s specific nature and needs.
They also work with others to ensure that the organization’s safety plans consider legal obligations, including setting goals and figuring out how to comply (Clause 6) and developing and implementing controls that ensure the organization follows all safety laws and regulations (Clause 8).
In addition, they evaluate how well the organization meets legal requirements (Clause 9), and in the event a legal issue comes up, they help identify ways to improve compliance and take corrective actions to fix problems (Clause 10).
External Consultants / External Auditors
Because ISO 45001 compliance requires continuous improvement of your safety system, external consultants or auditors can play a crucial role in giving your system a regular check-up (Clauses 9 & 10).
They can conduct audits or assessments to determine whether your organization is following ISO 45001 requirements and whether the safety system is working well. They’ll also examine hazard identification, risk assessments, controls, and legal compliance.
In addition, they’ll review data and documents to ensure effectiveness, identify areas for improvement, and, based on their findings, recommend ways to improve the safety system even further.
Communication Specialist
In ISO 45001, the role of a Communication Specialist is primarily tied to two key clauses: Clauses 5 and 7.
Under Clause 7, the Communication specialist can help develop a comprehensive communication strategy tailored to the organization’s needs, ensuring the effective dissemination of occupational health and safety information.
This involves providing necessary communication tools, materials, and training to facilitate transparent and efficient communication channels.
Under Clause 5, they can help facilitate communication between management and workers, encouraging worker participation in decision-making processes and promoting a positive safety culture.
An effective Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) isn’t a one-person team. As we’ve seen, a successful system requires a diverse group of people with different backgrounds and areas of expertise.
This blend of skills allows an OHSMS to address the various requirements of ISO 45001 while developing a culture of safety where everyone feels empowered to contribute to a safe and healthy work environment.