ISO 45001 PDCA Leadership

ISO45001:2018 – Clause 5 Leadership and how to use PDCA

Many Directors and CEO’s will be familiar with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and how ISO 45001 the standard for Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems, can assist an organisation to build a framework to manage hazards, mitigate risk and ensure effective safety management.

What is PDCA?

If they were to go a bit deeper, they’d find out that PDCA (Plan, Do Check and Act) is what makes management systems tick. Those inner workings of our ISO standard, management systems and of course processes can be viewed in a structured way, with an aim of promoting improvement. Otherwise known as the PDCA cycle, an approach where we can apply continuous improvement using a repeating four phase approach.

Section 5 of ISO 45001:2018, Leadership and worker participation, sets out the requirements for leadership – but how can we be sure that the CEO, the board and those at the very top of our organisations understand, support and are accountable for health and safety? One method may be through the use of PDCA at a leadership level.

• Plan: set the direction for health and safety

Determining strategic direction for effective health and safety management is the responsibility of our leaders. Board members need to establish a health and safety policy that is much more than a document – it should be an integral part of your organisation’s culture, values and performance standards. Board members should take the lead in ensuring the communication of health and safety duties and benefits throughout the organisation. Directors must develop policies to avoid health and safety issues and must respond quickly where difficulties arise or new risks are introduced.

• Do: deliver effective management systems

The Do phase and delivery of the Plan depends on an effective management system to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of employees, contractors, clients and the public. Organisations should aim to protect people by introducing management systems such as ISO 45001 and practices that ensure risks are dealt with sensibly, responsibly, and proportionately. Resources in health & safety management, including appointment of ‘competent’ persons should be applied, arrangements including risk assessments should be made and of course workers should be involved in the management system through participation.

We mentioned new risks being introduced in the plan phase, what did we mean by that? Quite simply if changes occur, for example new plant or equipment is introduced, new material or many other examples of the shifts in the moving parts that make up our organisations occurs, then we need to revisit the implications on our processes, our people and determine potential new hazards and associated risks.

• Check: monitor and report your performance

Monitoring and reporting are vital parts of a health and safety culture. Management systems such as ISO 45001and the information gathering they support through audit and data analysis can enable the board to have visibility of both specific accident and regular reports on the performance of health and safety management across their organisations.

Health and safety information needs be reported at the time of a formal management review. But only a strong system of monitoring can ensure that the formal review can proceed as planned – and that relevant events in the interim are brought to the board’s attention.

• Act: take action on failures and trends identified in health and safety performance

Now comes the time for the board to consider improvements in health and safety performance. By considering how well current arrangements are working, potential vulnerabilities and opportunities for improvement the board can not only consider trends but establish whether the essential health and safety principles have been embedded in the organisation and where they have failed to do so:

• strong and active leadership
• worker involvement
• assessment and review

Ultimately it also tells the board whether your system is effective in managing risk and protecting people and takes the cycle back to the plan stage in order to make decisions and consider actions where it isn’t.

How can PDCA assist in health and safety management?

So, there we have it, PDCA can assist your board in fulfilling their responsibilities under health and safety legislation and of course maintain compliance through protecting workers keeping them safe and protecting leaders and the organisation from punitive fines or in a worst-case scenario, from criminal prosecution.

To find out more about ISO 45001 including what you must do and how to evidence section 5 of the standard, Leadership, then get in touch now for an initial discussion.