Occupational health and safety management systems must adhere to ISO 45001:2018, an international standard. It was developed to offer suggestions for reducing the thousands of work-related diseases, fatalities, and injuries that occur every day across the globe. One of the most crucial certification standards an organization may attain is ISO 45001:2018 for sectors where workers are involved in activities that carry the risk of harm or death. To be consistent with other management system standards like ISO 9001:2015 for quality management systems and ISO 14001:2015 for environmental management systems, the ISO 45001 standard was amended in 2018 to reflect the high-level structure (HLS) outlined in Annex SL.
The operational planning and control function is described in clause 8.1 of the ISO 45001 standard as one that "helps to check the errors and to take corrective action so that deviations from standards are minimized and stated goals of the organization are accomplished in a desired manner." Given that the most effective practices, policies, and procedures in the world can become ineffective if you don't have the discipline and operational control to make sure they have the desired effect, it is clear that operational control is essential to the effectiveness of any management system.
Understand the what, why, and how of operational control.
Operational control, which can take many different forms, is essential, as has already been mentioned. There are specifications for risk assessment, internal audits, and other things if, for instance, you have an ISO 45001 system. Your operational control level should ensure that these occur on time, and on a regular basis and that the actions and outputs from these functions are carried out properly in order to guarantee that your system achieves the improvement it requires. So, how do we accomplish this practically?
- For assistance in making sure operational control is upheld, use an OH&S planning record. You can share a digital file with your team so that everyone can know when tasks and events are planned if you create one. Even a traffic light-style rule (red/yellow/green) could be used to indicate that a specific event's actions have concluded and are no longer being taken. This demonstrates not only the high level of operational control exercised by the business but also its dedication to transparency and worker involvement.
- For your ISO 45001 document system, make an "Operational Control Log". Make ensuring that all operational control functions are current and all assigned tasks are finished a responsibility of the OH&S team at its recurring meetings. After each meeting, review, adapt, and improve, making sure to take into account input from stakeholders and employees. The involvement of stakeholders is now seen as a crucial component of operational control for a company. If tasks are not completed as planned and operational control appears to be less successful than expected, think about employing your corrective action procedure.
- Make certain that the designated OH&S representative updates the Management and Health and Safety Teams on the degree of operational control. The level of operational control is insufficient and your OH&S performance will surely suffer if, for instance, internal audit and risk assessments are not started and finished on time.
Operational control is particularly mentioned in the standard in relation to outsourcing, contractors, change management, purchasing, and rules and procedures. You may use the following techniques to manage internal control generally and make sure your OH&S system operates promptly and effectively as long as operational control is taken into account and included when your policies are being created. Define procedures and roles, then monitor, review, and adapt as necessary. It resembles the classic "Plan-Do-Check-Act" cycle in many ways, and in fact, it does, but with a few tweaks to make sure we keep our processes and activities under control.
