Introduction

At last, I have finished explaining the “Plan” part of the PDCA cycle for an occupational health and safety management system. It took a lot of articles—and a lot of space—Orz.

ISO 45001 also provides methods for putting all those carefully planned controls into operation.

Still, it is worth repeating the familiar warning: without sound hazard identification, investigation of legal and other requirements, risk assessment, and planning of controls, even flawless implementation will leave something out. No wonder the planning discussion took so many articles.

Planning and implementing controls also require objectives. Objectives allow an organization to check whether its working environment is actually improving, which is why ISO 45001 specifically requires organizations to establish occupational health and safety objectives.

This article therefore focuses on implementing controls and setting OH&S objectives. I originally planned to mention objectives briefly as part of the planning discussion because the topic is not very long, but that somehow felt wrong—so it gets its own article!

Setting Occupational Health and Safety Objectives

An occupational health and safety objective is an objective set by an organization to achieve specific results consistent with its OH&S policy.

ISO 45001 places OH&S objectives and the planning needed to achieve them in the “Planning” clause, after hazard identification, determination of legal and other requirements, and assessment of risks and opportunities.

I find this order slightly odd. Read literally, the placement suggests that an organization should establish objectives and methods immediately after understanding its circumstances and identifying problems.

In practice, however, OH&S objectives are often achieved through the planning and implementation of controls. Setting the objectives before controls have been planned may therefore need some adjustment. In the practical sequence proposed here, this step comes after control planning.

Of course, readers who prefer to establish OH&S objectives earlier may do so XD. Use whichever sequence works more naturally for the organization.

ISO 45001 Requirements for OH&S Objectives

In addition to assessing hazards, risks, and opportunities and planning related actions, ISO 45001 requires an organization to establish OH&S objectives to maintain and continually improve both the management system and OH&S performance.

The objectives must be measurable or capable of performance evaluation, communicated, monitored, and updated when necessary.

After establishing the objectives, the organization should plan how to achieve them, identify the resources required, and maintain and retain the objectives and plans as documented information.

A Practical Approach Recommended in This Article

Because OH&S objectives concern the organization’s overall policy and direction, the organization should establish them at relevant functions and levels. Top management remains accountable for the leadership and effectiveness of the management system and should ensure that non-managerial workers are consulted when the objectives are established.

To prevent objectives from becoming slogans, they should be measurable or capable of evaluation, communicated, and monitored. They may also be integrated with the organization’s other business objectives.

In practice[1], OH&S objectives can be translated into OH&S performance measures and monitored, measured, and communicated during performance evaluation. Quantitative measures might include reducing injuries by 10% or lowering annual equipment failure rates by 10%. Qualitative measures may come from questionnaires or interviews. This is the approach adopted here.

After setting the objectives, the organization should use a PDCA process approach to achieve them. During planning, it should determine the following:

1. What actions will be taken to achieve each OH&S objective; this article recommends adjusting the risk controls discussed earlier.

2. What resources the actions require and whether additional resources are needed.

3. Who will be responsible and whether a project team should be established.

4. When the objective is expected to be achieved.

5. How the results will be evaluated.

Under the approach proposed above, OH&S objectives are expressed through OH&S performance, so they may be evaluated as part of the management system’s existing performance-evaluation process. Because ISO 45001 requires documented information, the objectives and plans for achieving them must both be maintained and retained as documented information.

Implementing Control Measures

As noted in “[ISO 45001 Series] Planning: An Overview of Planning and Hazard Identification,” ISO 45001 is built on the PDCA cycle, but its clauses are not arranged in a perfectly traditional PDCA sequence. The “Operation” clause contains both planning-related material on control planning and Do-related methods for implementing those controls.

The requirements discussed here therefore come from one part of the “Operation” clause. I will also offer practical recommendations for applying them.

Drawing on practical recommendations, ISO 45001 requirements, and the technical guidelines issued by Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor for TOSHMS, earlier articles developed processes for hazard identification, assessment of risks and opportunities, and planning of risk controls. Those plans must now be carried out in the Do stage of PDCA.

For operation, ISO 45001 recommends establishing criteria for each process and implementing control of those processes according to the criteria—in other words, create an SOP and have everyone in the organization follow the standard process.

The established criteria and the extent to which processes have been carried out as planned should be preserved as documented information, providing confidence that implementation followed the plan.

The Ministry of Labor’s risk-assessment technical guidance also states that if risks encountered during operation differ from expectations, the organization should return to Plan, revise the plan, and then continue implementation. This leaves room for adjustment during execution.

Knowing whether the risk has changed, of course, depends on the performance-evaluation process that follows.

Conclusion

With that, the Plan and Do stages of the occupational health and safety management system have finally received a reasonably complete explanation.

Once an organization has established controls, planned how the process will operate, and defined the OH&S objectives it wants to achieve, is that the end?

Not quite. At this point, the organization is only operating the controls. It has not yet tested whether they reduce risk as planned or achieve the objectives that were set.

The next article will therefore turn to performance evaluation: how to assess the effectiveness of the OH&S management system and what indicators can be used.

See you in the next article : D.

References

[1] Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs. Practical Manual for Promoting Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems in Manufacturing—ISO 45001. 2019, p. 75.