How to Get an ISO OHSAS 18001 Accreditation

The International Organisation of Standardisation (ISO) has released a new standard for the 18001 accreditation in 2007.  In these specifications they deal with the defined requirements that your company’s occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS) should follow in order to be certified.  The overall purpose of these newer management standards is to make sure that companies can reduce problems and risks to their employee’s occupational health and safety.  The important thing to remember is that the ISO Ohsas 18001 Certification will vary depending on the size of your business and the conditions under which your company operates.  For instance, a small business that deals mainly in child care may not have to worry about the same kind of recommendations as a larger construction company.

Many companies have worked hard to meet these standards but they do not necessarily have an accreditation with the ISO.  This means that while they are compliant with the standards, they have not officially registered with the ISO to be audited and receive an official certification to prove that you are compliant with ISO OHSAS 18001.

Before you ask for an auditor to check your company for compliance, one of the first things that you need to do it to read through the safety standards and write down a policy for your employees and your business that matches these standards.  This will include writing down a system of procedures and methods that your company can use to identify potential health and safety risks as well as ways to handle problems should they occur.  You will also want to make sure that if there are any areas of safety that need to be addressed immediately that you have a set of programs in place to address and achieve the objectives that have been outlined in the ISO OHSAS 18001 standards.

In order to make sure that your company is doing everything possible to ensure its safety compliance you will want to appoint someone within the company to be in charge of the policies and managing the occupational health and safety of all employees.  This way you can be sure that any potential risks or problems that could occur are being looked at and dealt with on a daily basis.  This person would also be in charge of coming up with the company’s unique management system and a written protocol for employees to follow to help ensure that the business is remaining up to code with the standards.

When you get the certification for ISO OHSAS 18001 the company will be audited by an external company to make sure that you are following all of the standards correctly and that you are doing everything possible to maintain these standards.  After you receive the accreditation, the company will probably want to keep up with internal audits so that they can address any potential threats or hazards in a timely manner.  This will also allow you to improve and update the management system so that you can be sure that when you apply for re-accreditation you will be sure to meet the standards of ISO OHSAS 18001.

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