Implementing OHSAS 18001 effectively - Key to ensuring business sustainability

July 31, 2012 - PRLog -- One of the most important & imperative factors in ensuring profitability & sustainability of any business enterprise is its human work-force, or better known as ‘workers’ or ‘employees’. Although the nature or type of business can be widely different, like manufacturing sector, service sector and others, but the foundation of all such businesses rely heavily on the employees. One of the key points to consider in the evaluation of performance of employees is, besides other factors, health & safety of workers. The proper technical name given to this parameter is Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S). The output & efficiency of workers/employees depend significantly on the two important factors: Health & Safety. Although the two entities might seem the same, but actually they are quite distinctly different. ‘Health’ refers to all those physical conditions (especially negative developments) that arise out of exposure of workers to the typical physical environment at the work-place, like exposure to harmful chemicals, radiations etc., and ‘Safety’ refers to the hazard or risk aspect associated with working at the work-place. The gravity of importance, in terms of paying immediate attention, for the latter factor is considerably more than that for the former, although both should be monitored stringently in order to ensure an ideal work environment.
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The direct or indirect impact that can affect the progress of any business as a result of any damage to its workers can be gauged from the following estimate (based on a survey conducted by an international body). Annually, around 2.5 million workers lose their lives due to accidents (400 million work-related accidents) taking place at work places, & also due to diseases/illness originating at work-places (260 million occupational diseases). All such work-place related accidental deaths & diseases amount to enormous financial losses. As per a reliable survey report, approximately 4% of world’s gross national product is lost due to such occupational damages. Such damages should be viewed as societal crimes or evils as they not only cause damage to any business firm and hence its existing employees by stalling the company’s progress, but also affect those families who lose their near & dear ones, for no fault of theirs. In order to mitigate or counter such economic & human losses, organizations need to have a proper occupational & health management system, like the Occupational Health & Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) in place, & implement it with serious intent.
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The concept of occupational health & safety management system is not something very new; in fact it was being acknowledged & followed by a number of companies across various developed countries since the time of modern industrialization. But due to the availability of surplus OH&S specifications developed by various international agencies & the discrete differences in them which led to serious confusions, the need for a single, systematic, & standardized specification that would lend itself suitable for acceptable third-party certification processes was realized. This led to the coming together of a number of various independent groups of international standard bodies & certification bodies (called ‘registrars’) to develop a consensus on the matter of OH&S management system, and hence the OHSAS 18001 was officially promulgated in 1999. Structurally, this specification was based on ISO 14001 (Environmental management system) & ISO 9001 (Quality management system for ‘Processes’), although OHSAS 18001 has not been conferred the status of an ISO standard. This ease of compatibility between these different management systems made it possible for business firms to integrate these discrete systems into a single total quality management system. OHSAS 18001 has been modeled on the popular management system principle, ‘Plan-Do-Check-Act’. A few of the various international bodies & consultancy agencies that participated in its formulation were British Standards Institution, Bureau Veritas Quality International, Det Norske Veritas, SGS Yarsley International, Standards Australia, and National Quality Assurance.  
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Some of the key benefits of implementing OHSAS 18001 by an organization are as follows: (actually the benefits can be a lot more than these)

* Significant improvement in the performance of an organization, in terms of productivity & efficiency.
* Reduction in the occurrence & recurrence of accidents & any health-damaging incident at work-place.
* Improved compliance to legal & regulatory requirements/standards of any country.
* Reduction in production interruptions & breakdowns.
* Lowering of insurance costs, due to damage to material & human property, incurred by a company.  
* Enhanced faith amongst employees & customers.

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Since its first edition in 1999, OHSAS 18001 has been revised once & the new version was published in 2007. The revised edition has a number of important changes incorporated in it which emphasizes the growing acceptability & awareness amongst various business groups regarding the specification. The important modifications in OHSAS 18001:2007 are as follows:
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* Greater emphasis laid on ‘health’ rather than just ‘safety’.
* OHSAS 18001 is now referred to as a ‘Standard’, & not just a specification.
* Significant improvement in alignment with ISO 14001:2004 throughout the standard and improved compatibility with ISO 9001:2000.
* The ‘Plan-Do-Check-Act’ model diagram is only given in the introduction.
* The term ‘tolerable risk’ has been substituted by the term ‘acceptable risk’.
* The term ‘accident’ has been included in the term ‘incident’.

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