Management system guidance
9.1 Monitoring, Measurement, Analysis and Performance Evaluation
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9.1.1 General
ISO 45001 clause 9.1.1 requires your organization to set up and maintain a process (or processes) to monitor, measure, analyze and evaluate its OH&S performance. Data and information gathered from a variety of sources is the raw material for informed OH&S decision-making: it tells top management whether hazards are being controlled, whether OH&S objectives are on track and whether the OH&S management system is delivering its intended outcomes.
What the standard requires
Your organization needs to decide:
- What to monitor and measure – as a minimum, how well legal requirements and other requirements are being fulfilled (see 9.1.2); activities and operations linked to the hazards, risks and opportunities you have identified (see 6.1.2); progress towards your OH&S objectives; and how effective your operational and other controls are;
- The methods to be used, as applicable, so that results are valid;
- The criteria against which OH&S performance will be judged;
- When monitoring and measuring will take place; and
- When the results will be analyzed, evaluated and communicated.
Using this information, your organization must evaluate its OH&S performance and decide how effective the OH&S management system is. Monitoring and measuring equipment must be calibrated or verified as applicable, and used and maintained appropriately – bear in mind that legislation or national standards may set specific calibration or verification requirements, for example for noise meters or gas detectors. Appropriate documented information must be retained as evidence of monitoring, measurement, analysis and performance evaluation results, and of the maintenance, calibration or verification of measuring equipment.
Criteria and indicators
Criteria are what you compare your performance against – for example, benchmarks against other organizations, industry standards and codes, your own targets and objectives, or published OH&S statistics. Indicators are then used to measure each criterion. If the criterion is incident performance, the indicators might be the frequency, type or severity rate of incidents; if the criterion is the completion of corrective actions, the indicator could be the percentage closed on time.
Annex A of ISO 45001 suggests examples of what could be monitored and measured, including occupational health complaints, worker health (through health surveillance) and the work environment; work-related incidents, injuries, ill health and complaints, including trends; the effectiveness of operational controls and emergency exercises; and competence.
Active and reactive monitoring
It is usually necessary to use both active (leading) and reactive (lagging) monitoring data to decide whether objectives are being achieved:
- Active monitoring checks that plans, risk controls and workplace precautions are in place and working before harm occurs – for example, confirming that newly appointed workers have attended an induction, or that permit-to-work checks are being completed;
- Reactive monitoring examines evidence of failure – incidents, injuries, cases of ill health and near misses – so that lessons can be learned and fed into 10.2 Incident, nonconformity and corrective action.
Active monitoring should be proportionate to your hazard profile and concentrate on the areas likely to give the greatest control of risk. Key risk controls should be monitored in more detail, more often, or both, than low-risk activities.
Measurement techniques
The following are examples of methods that can be used to measure OH&S performance:
- Systematic workplace inspections or safety tours using checklists;
- Inspections of specific machinery and plant to check that safety-related parts are fitted and in good condition;
- Safety sampling – examining specific aspects of health and safety;
- Exposure monitoring – measuring exposure to chemical, biological or physical agents (e.g. noise, fumes, dusts, vibration) and comparing results with recognized exposure limits;
- Health surveillance of workers exposed to specific hazards;
- Behavior sampling – observing work being performed to identify unsafe practices that need correcting;
- Interviews with workers and reviews of documented information;
- Benchmarking against good OH&S practice in other organizations.
Inspection
A system for inspecting workplace precautions is an important part of any active monitoring programme. It can form part of the arrangements for the preventive maintenance of plant and equipment, which may also be covered by legal requirements – for example pressure systems, lifts, cranes, lifting tackle, scaffolds, trench supports and local exhaust ventilation. Inspections should also cover other workplace precautions, such as the condition of premises and systems of work.
A suitable programme should take all risks into account but be properly targeted. Low risks might be dealt with by general inspections every month or two, covering the condition of floors, passages, stairs, lighting, welfare facilities and first aid. Higher risks need more frequent and detailed inspections – weekly, daily or, in some cases, before each use, such as pre-use checks on mobile plant. Inspections should be carried out by competent people who can recognize the relevant hazards, and a well-thought-out approach will include:
- Inspection forms that require deficiencies to be ranked in order of importance so that remedial action can be prioritized;
- Summary lists of remedial actions with owners and deadlines to track progress;
- Periodic analysis of inspection results to spot common features or trends that may reveal underlying weaknesses;
- Information to help decide whether the frequency or content of the inspection programme needs to change.
Analysis and evaluation
Analysis means examining data to reveal relationships, patterns and trends. Analyze reported incidents for location, time, work activity, type of hazard, and direct and root causes so that trends can be spotted and groups of incidents traced back to common causes. Based on this analysis, the need to review or reassess any control measure should be evaluated and acted upon.
In small organizations the low volume of data can make trends difficult to identify. Regular meetings with workers and people with appropriate expertise to discuss OH&S issues can compensate – the information may be more qualitative than quantitative, but it still helps to identify hazards and risks. Collaborating with industry associations or similar organizations can also provide useful comparative data. Larger organizations with many sites or contractors should think about how data is gathered, its quality, and how it is categorized to support meaningful analysis.
Clause 5.4 requires an emphasis on consulting non-managerial workers when determining what needs to be monitored, measured and evaluated, and results should be communicated to the people who need them, including relevant workers and top management for management review.
You should seek and record evidence that your organization has a defined process for monitoring, measurement, analysis and performance evaluation; that it has decided what to monitor, the methods, criteria, frequency and timing for analysis and communication; that monitoring and measuring equipment is calibrated or verified, maintained and used correctly; that workers have been consulted; and that documented information of results, analysis and equipment calibration or verification has been retained.
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