My Experience in an ISO 45001 Lead Auditor Training Course (IRCA)

Why I enrolled

Why did I want an ISO 45001 lead-auditor qualification?

My thesis examined employers’ responsibility for occupational accidents through the framework of occupational safety and health management systems. The current version of that system is ISO 45001:2018.

I had spent a great deal of time turning abstract management-system clauses into more detailed material by comparing Taiwan’s laws and rules from other fields. Without a lead-auditor qualification, I felt that work would be far less convincing—rather like talking about a game I had never actually played. I also lacked practical experience and wanted to hear from people who actually conducted audits and advised organizations.

So I opened my wallet and enrolled. The thesis was eventually completed and submitted, and I also turned my practical thoughts on implementing ISO 45001 into articles on this site. Did the publication fee pay back the tuition? Of course not—nice try.

For my paper on employers’ duty to prevent occupational accidents, see The Connotation of Employer's Protection Obligation to Prevent Occupational Accidents- Concretized by Occupational Health and Safety Management System.

For a practical ISO 45001 framework and its relationship to Taiwan’s laws, see my ISO 45001 implementation articles. Taking the course made me much more confident when discussing ISO 45001.

Lead auditor vs. internal auditor training

Anyone who has looked at ISO training providers will probably have seen two types of auditor qualification: lead auditor and internal auditor.

The following comparison was compiled from information published by several providers and from my own understanding.

By then I knew the clauses almost by heart from writing my thesis. What I needed was audit and field experience, so lead-auditor training was the natural choice.

I was also considering future ISO consulting work; compared with an internal-auditor certificate, the lead-auditor qualification seemed more practical.

Choosing a provider

I also held internal-auditor certifications for ISO 14001 and ISO 9001. Organisations often build those systems alongside ISO 45001, so I wanted at least some familiarity with all three.

Why not obtain lead-auditor qualifications for all of them? They were expensive, and I was still a not-yet-graduated student with a very finite wallet.

I had taken my internal-auditor courses through Leadership Management Consultants, so I first checked whether that familiar provider offered a lead-auditor course. At the time I did not realise that only a small number of organisations could run such courses; I assumed that any provider offering internal-auditor training would also offer lead-auditor training. It does not work that way.

I looked at several providers, including SGS and BSI. Prices were broadly in the same range, and the real differences were whether the dates worked and whether I felt comfortable with the registration process.

After putting it aside for a whole two days, I found a course through the consultancy I already knew. It was slightly cheaper, so I enrolled. Only afterward did I learn that the consultancy referred participants to BSI; the referral simply lowered the fee a little. After all that comparison, I ended up at BSI anyway.

My practical advice is to check the registration and payment process, location and timetable first. I cannot judge whether providers differ in teaching content or examination difficulty because I have only taken this one ISO 45001 course.

How the course worked

I attended only this BSI course, so everything in this section is my experience of this particular cohort, not a claim about every BSI course or every lead-auditor provider.

Venue

Our cohort met in a conference room at National Taiwan University’s Civil Service Development Institute, at No. 30, Section 3, Xinsheng South Road, Da’an District, Taipei.

From Neihu, I found Technology Building MRT Station plus a roughly ten-minute walk or YouBike ride most convenient. Going via Gongguan on the first day was a little too far for me; Daan Park may also work, although I did not try it.

The room was excellent. There were fewer than twenty people, everyone had a long table and an extra chair for bags, and nobody had to squeeze together. Because BSI had booked the room, we could leave our things at our seats throughout the five days—an enormous relief with so much material.

Materials and gifts

This was my first genuinely high-end—and expensive—course. When I arrived at my assigned seat, the table covered in gifts was a surprise.

I later changed phones and lost the photo of that table, but I still kept the materials, so I can at least show them here.

Besides one substantial manual, there were bottles, stationery, folders, a thinner manual and plenty of paper handouts. Carrying all of that back and forth every day would have been maddening, so being able to leave some things in the room was helpful. The gifts alone gave a sense of the course’s price and weight.

Food

You may think food is an odd topic to mention before course content. No: it is clearly essential.

I was genuinely impressed. Internal-auditor courses had usually meant boxed meals, not that boxed meals are bad. Here there was a breakfast box, lunches at the institute—sometimes buffet, shared dishes or Western food—plus afternoon tea and snacks. Tea, coffee, water and biscuits were always available at the back of the room. Food was not a concern; eating too much might have been.

Instructors

There were two instructors because one appeared to have another audit assignment. Both introduced themselves as highly experienced practitioners, each with hundreds of audits of corporate entities behind them.

When audit practice came up, they shared plenty of examples of organisations doing things that were, shall we say, not ideal, and reminded us what to notice in future audits.

Course content

Lead-auditor training differs markedly from internal-auditor training. Internal-auditor classes are mainly lecture-based, with little interaction between participants. In the lead-auditor course, large portions of the time were group discussion, and we were divided into two teams from the first day.

The course ran from morning to evening for the first four days; the fifth day was the examination. One part explained ISO 45001 clause by clause. The other covered audit practice: scheduling, team assignments and matters to watch during an audit.

The most interesting part was the many cases and photographs, followed by the instructor asking, “Which nonconformity do you think should be raised here?” There were lectures, slides and occasional videos, and I learned a great deal without feeling bored.

If you dislike group discussion and only want to sit through lectures, take note: discussion was extremely frequent. Sometimes less than a third of a class period was lecture and the rest was discussion, often followed by a presentation.

Homework

Yes, there was homework—and a lot of it. Except for the evening before the examination, every day brought group assignments to discuss, write and present the next morning.

The assignments were related to ISO 45001 clauses and auditing, and they were clearly useful practice. Still, after a full day of class, they were demanding. The final assignment remained after the examination: consolidate the previous days’ work into a report for the instructor.

Fortunately I had very capable teammates, which made the group work much more comfortable. Even so, the workload was substantial, and some of the heavy materials still had to travel home for homework.

Examination

This is probably the part many readers worry about. The examination included definitions, simpler short-answer questions, case questions and application questions, chiefly related to audit situations.

My impression was that anyone who studied, listened and participated should be able to answer the questions and pass. The instructors provided necessary help and review, although I heard that one or two people in our cohort did not pass and went to BSI for a retake.

On the day, I wrote almost miraculously fast—my hand hurt as much as it did in legal case exams. If you have participated seriously, I do not think the examination needs to be frightening.

Conclusion

With four full teaching days, intense homework and an examination on the fifth day, it was a very full and demanding course.

Many participants were probably attending because their companies needed the qualification. I strongly recommend clearing as much else as possible from your schedule; I was exhausted. I admired classmates who still planned to return to the office after class. I only wanted dinner and homework.

Although the instructors spent time explaining ISO 45001 requirements, they moved quickly because the course’s focus was audit application. I would not recommend jumping straight into lead-auditor training if you have not taken internal-auditor training or do not yet understand the clauses.

Overall, I recommend it. The course was expensive compared with many other qualifications, but after five classes full of food, materials and learning, I felt it was worthwhile.