Management system guidance
10.0 Improvement
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10.3 Continual improvement
ISO 45001 clause 10.3 requires your organization to continually improve the suitability, adequacy and effectiveness of its OH&S management system. Continual improvement is one of the intended outcomes of the standard and a commitment that must be included in the OH&S policy.
What the standard requires
Your organization must continually improve the OH&S management system by:
- Enhancing OH&S performance;
- Promoting a culture that supports the OH&S management system;
- Promoting the participation of workers in implementing continual improvement actions;
- Sharing relevant continual improvement results with workers and with any workers' representatives;
- Maintaining and retaining documented information as evidence of continual improvement.
Enhancing OH&S performance
OH&S performance relates to the effectiveness of preventing injury and ill health to workers and of providing safe and healthy workplaces. Evidence of enhanced performance might include falling incident or ill-health rates, reduced exposure levels, fewer high-risk activities, improved inspection scores, or higher levels of leading indicators such as hazard reports and safety observations. Your monitoring and measurement results and OH&S objectives should show this progress over time.
Promoting a supportive culture
A positive OH&S culture is one in which workers feel able to report hazards, incidents and near misses without fear of blame or reprisal, managers lead by example, and health and safety are treated as part of how work is done rather than an add-on. Practical ways to build this culture include visible leadership tours, recognizing good safety behavior, acting promptly on worker concerns and openly sharing lessons from incidents. Clause 5.1 makes developing, leading and promoting such a culture a top management responsibility (see 5.1).
Worker participation
Workers are often best placed to identify practical improvements to the way work is done. Encourage participation through safety committees, toolbox talks, suggestion schemes, improvement teams and involving workers in risk assessments and incident investigations (see 5.4, which also emphasizes consulting non-managerial workers on ensuring continual improvement). Remove barriers to participation, such as failure to respond to suggestions, language or literacy difficulties, or fear of reprisal.
Sources of continual improvement
ISO 45001 Annex A gives examples of continual improvement issues, which can include:
- New technology;
- Good practices, both internal and external to the organization;
- Suggestions and recommendations from interested parties;
- New knowledge and understanding of OH&S-related issues;
- New or improved materials;
- Changes in worker capabilities or competence;
- Achieving improved performance with fewer resources, for example through simplification or streamlining.
Using the PDCA cycle
The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle provides a simple framework for continual improvement:
- Plan – identify the improvement opportunity, assess the OH&S risks and opportunities involved and set objectives;
- Do – implement the change, on a small scale first where practical, managing it through 8.1.3 Management of change;
- Check – monitor and measure the results against the objectives;
- Act – adopt the change more widely if it has worked, update documented information and share the results.
Communicating results and keeping evidence
Communicate the relevant results of continual improvement to workers and their representatives – for example, reporting back on the outcome of suggestions, publishing performance trends, or explaining how a new control has reduced exposure. Maintain and retain documented information to demonstrate continual improvement, such as improvement plans and registers, objective progress reports, management review records and trend data.
You should seek and record evidence that your organization continually improves the suitability, adequacy and effectiveness of its OH&S management system; that OH&S performance is being enhanced; that a supportive OH&S culture and worker participation in improvement actions are being promoted; that relevant results are communicated to workers and their representatives; and that documented information is maintained and retained as evidence of continual improvement.
More information on PDCA
Planning
Context
Planning
Support
Doing
Support
Operations
Checking
Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation
Acting
Improvement
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