As part of its process of continuous improvement towards excellence in health and safety, Eiffage Energía is adapting the OHSAS 18.001 standard to the new standard “ISO 45.001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System”.
One of several modifications that have been made due to this adaptation was the update of the Health and Safety Policy to reflect the organisation’s commitment to a health and safety culture, senior management support and improved communication and coordination between all departments, processes and stakeholders.
The main improvements to the OHSAS 18001 standard include:
– The increased importance of developing the organisation’s context.
– More effective risk management, considering both positive and negative effects, and taking advantage of any nascent opportunities.
– Reinforcing the business strategy and health and safety leadership by senior management.
– Promoting a culture of prevention throughout the group, at all levels and hierarchies.
– The mandatory nature of meeting legal requirements. Evidence must be provided to prove this.
– The creation of indicator management records to show that continuous improvement targets are met.
– The new standard has a high level structure, which makes it easy to integrate with the main implemented standards, such as ISO 9001:2015 or ISO 14001:2015.
The following main advantages of this update should be emphasised:
– Both absenteeism and staff turnover are reduced by a high percentage: staff are more comfortable in their workplace.
– Productivity increases: safe workers are happy workers. And consequently they are more productive (improved working conditions).
– In relation to the above, economic benefits increase as productivity increases.
– Reduction of the accident rate (incidents and accidents), thanks to preventive activity planning, including specific measures for each identified risk.
– Insurance premiums will also be lower.
– Involvement of the entire organisation in the Health and Safety culture, through employee participation measures to encourage their involvement.
– All of this can be summarised as greater employee confidence in the company.
– Better market access due to an improved company brand image, as well as a better reputation compared to others that have not implemented the ISO 45001 standard.
– Legal compliance is facilitated by bringing together the legal requirements into a single matrix and encouraging staff training and information.
This first phase will culminate in the certification process that will take place at the end of this year. This is just one more step of this business group’s COMMITMENT to achieving excellence in Health and Safety for and with all EIFFAGE ENERGÍA group employees.
