What is ILO OSH 2001 Standard?

The World Health Organization (ILO) was founded in the year 1919. Our country started to actively participate in the activities of this organization after the establishment of the Ministry of Labor in 1945. However, the Law on Trade Unions was established in 1947 in our country and it has been since this year to send workers and employers' representatives to the work of the World Health Organization.

The first Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems Manual prepared by the World Health Organization in the form of practical instructions was published in December 2001 (ILO OSH 2001 standard).

This standard focuses mainly on two objectives:

• To help countries establish their own occupational health and safety management systems
• To guide businesses to integrate occupational health and safety work into their existing systems with policy and administrative arrangements

This first ILO OSH 2001 standard seeks to ensure that preventive and protective measures are taken and implemented so that businesses can control risks and potential hazards. The standard includes various substances ranging from the elimination of risks and possible hazards in order of priority to the provision of personal protective equipment. The standard also emphasizes the need to include the entity's health and safety requirements in the purchase and lease agreements. Likewise, according to the standard, the effects of work-related injuries, diseases and diseases and the events causing them on health and safety performance should be investigated. At the same time, corrective and preventive studies should be performed according to the results of the research.

What is BS 8800 Standard?

The BS 8800 standard was designed by the British Standards Institution (BSI) in 1996 as the Occupational Health and Safety Management System Guide. While designing this standard, it is based on the fact that occupational health and safety management activities should be integrated into the management understanding of the enterprises and that it is an integral element of general management. Consequently, the BS 8800 standard is a guiding standard and contains a number of recommendations to guide business management. This standard, which is a guideline, is also the basis for the certification studies of the enterprises.

The OHSAS 1999 standard published in 18001 is based on the BS 8800 standard, which includes the main headings for the Occupational Health and Safety Management System.

The guidance elements of the BS 8800 standard are:

• Development of occupational health and safety system in enterprises
• Establishing connections with other management systems available in the enterprises

The executives of all levels in the enterprises in the implementation of this standard are responsible for the health and safety of all employees. These managers are also asked to ensure that their workplace is suitable for health and safety. Administrators should also be aware that the decisions they will take on these issues will affect the performance of the system.

What is the OHSAS 18001 Standard?

The OHSAS 18001 standard is a standard that focuses on the health of the employees and the safety of the work, not on the safety of the products and services of the enterprises. With the implementation of this standard, it is aimed to clarify the duties and responsibilities of the employees and supervisors in the enterprise, to accelerate the process of harmonization with the existing legal regulations and domestic and foreign standards, to ensure the protection of resources and to gain competitiveness to the enterprise.

Accidents in businesses are undesirable events that cause deaths, injuries, diseases, material damage and other losses. Occupational health and safety refers to factors and conditions that threaten the health and safety of employees, temporary workers, visitors and other persons in the workplace.

OHSAS Occupational Health and Safety Management System is a system that facilitates the management of risks and hazards related to the activities of the enterprises. The basis is the BS 8800 standard. However, this standard is not a basis for certification studies. Therefore, several independent auditing companies and certification bodies came together and started a study and aimed to establish an internationally valid health and safety standard. As a result of these studies, OHSAS 1999 Occupational Health and Safety Management System standard was published in 18001.

The OHSAS 18001 standard is currently in effect in the field of occupational health and safety. However, since this standard does not have an ISO standard and there is no accreditation, a committee was established by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in 2014 and studies for revising and developing this standard were initiated. The draft of the ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System standard, which will replace this standard, was published in 2015 in August. The preparation of the ISO 45001 standard was aimed to be completed and published in 2016, but has not yet come to an end.

What are the Benefits of the OHSAS 18001 Standard?

The main benefits of the OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System are:

• To protect employees from accidents and negative effects of work environment and to provide employees with a comfortable and safe working environment
• Preventing accidents, occupational diseases and similar situations that will put the enterprise at risk thanks to the measures to be taken
• Raising the motivation of the employees and ensuring the participation of the employees in the system
• To minimize the loss of workforce due to occupational diseases and work accidents
• Increasing work efficiency and reducing costs
• To comply with current legal regulations
• Ensure that the entity is prepared against official audits
• Gaining superiority over competitors in the sector
• Gaining a reputation for customers and creating a responsive and responsible business image

In short, the OHSAS 18001 standard is an international standard that aims to identify hazards and risks that may cause harm to enterprises in advance and to take the necessary measures. The OHSAS 18001 standard is largely aimed at complying with current regulations. The size of the sector or enterprises in which the companies operate is not important. All businesses that want to have a system in order to eliminate the health and safety risks of employees and customers can install and implement OHSAS 18001 standard in their enterprises.

What is Occupational Health and Safety?

The Labor Law in force and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation issued on the basis of this Law describes the measures to be taken to improve the health and safety conditions in the workplaces. Accordingly, employers in all types of businesses, workplaces in order to establish a healthy and safe working environment must take all necessary measures.

The said regulations include the following principles:

• Prevention of occupational risks, protection of health and safety in working environments, elimination of all risk and accident factors
• Training, informing, obtaining opinions and participation of employees and workers' representatives on occupational health and safety
• Determining the working conditions of the persons to be protected by considering their age, sex and special circumstances

In general, when it comes to occupational health, a concept that encompasses production activities and working environment is considered. If there is no healthy working environment in the enterprises, it is not possible to talk about the health of the employees. Occupational health means the highest level of physical, mental and social health of employees. Occupational safety refers to the efforts made to protect the company from the dangers that arise during the continuation of the activities and the conditions that may harm the health of the employees and to create a more favorable working environment.

The issue of occupational health and safety deals with a wide range of issues ranging from the design of production tools from the scientific point of view, to human behavior, which is the direct element of production. Legal regulations are completely intertwined with occupational health and safety. In addition, ergonomics plays an important role in determining the layout of the production area, in the design of various machinery and equipment, in determining the working environment conditions and in harmony with human nature and physiology.

What is the Importance of Occupational Health and Safety?

As industrialization increases, there is an increase in occupational diseases and occupational accidents that employees are exposed to. This increase is due to the fact that employees are untrained and inexperienced, as well as not working carefully and not taking adequate occupational health and safety measures. The importance of occupational health and safety is evident here. With these studies, the risks that exist in the working environment are eliminated, the dangers are eliminated and in this way, it is possible for employees to catch occupational diseases and to be protected from work accidents. At the same time, these activities ensure production safety, save time, labor and resource usage and increase the personal performance of the employees.

Likewise, with the occupational health and safety studies, the safety of various tools, equipment, machinery and facilities used in the enterprises is ensured, and security audits of all the elements at risk can be performed.

With the implementation of the OHSAS 18001 standard, businesses achieve their goals in the following respects:

• The applicable laws and regulations are followed and employees and managers have the ability to interpret these regulations.
• Therefore, businesses fulfill their current legal obligations in a complete and correct manner.
• All necessary measures are taken and compliance of these measures with the legal regulations is ensured.
• Enterprises have the ability to conduct risk analysis on worker health and safety, use measurement methods effectively and make necessary measurements and evaluations.
• The enterprises inform the employees in terms of legal rights and responsibilities, explain the occupational risks they face, take the necessary precautions to be taken regarding these risks, organize employee health and safety training programs and ensure that employees participate in these programs.

In order to achieve these goals, enterprises have to conduct risk analyzes, plan emergency actions, conduct regular examinations of employees, provide first aid training to employees and establish an occupational health and safety committee. By law, the Board is compulsory only in businesses that consistently employ more than 50 workers and work for more than six months.

If an entity has not taken occupational health and safety measures, it may be subject to various criminal practices as well as the cessation of activities and closure of the workplace by law.

What Does the OHSAS 18001 Standard Gain for Businesses?

Occupational health and safety is one of the most important issues in integration studies with the European Union. For this reason, one-to-one compliance with the relevant European Union directives and our Labor Law legislation has been achieved. An entity that has implemented the ISO 18001 standard has followed the legal regulations and fulfilled its requirements in a healthy way. Likewise, these enterprises have identified workers' health and safety risks and prepared action plans to minimize these risks. This means that you are prepared for any emergency.

It also means that it has set occupational health and safety targets and has made and executes the necessary action plans to achieve these targets. These enterprises monitor system performance through internal audits and carry out continuous improvement activities. All records for the implementation of the system are maintained and maintained. This is also important for protecting the legal rights of employees and employers.

The OHSAS 18001 standard published by the British Standards Institute is not an ISO standard, such as ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 standards. Therefore, this type is different from international standards. The OHSAS 18001 standard was adopted by the Turkish Standards Institute (TSE) and published with the following headings:

• TS 18001 Occupational health and safety management systems - Requirements (in 2001)
• TS 18002 Occupational health and safety management systems - TS 18001 application guide (in 2004)

Structure of TS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System

The TS 18001 standard is intended to:

• Establishing an effective Occupational Health and Safety Management System in Businesses
• Easily integrate this system with other management systems
• To support the business in achieving occupational health and safety objectives

To be successful in this system, as in other quality systems, especially depends on the commitment of senior management.

This standard enables enterprises to develop a system for implementing occupational health and safety policy, setting targets and identifying processes, taking measures to improve performance when necessary and ensuring that the system complies with the requirements of the standard. Naturally, this standard is based on the plan, implement, control and take action cycle. Standard details may vary depending on the scope, size, and organizational structure of the entity.

Occupational health and safety refers to the factors and conditions that affect the health and safety of employees, suppliers, visitors and others in the workplace in terms of the implementation of the standard. Risk refers to the likelihood of a dangerous situation occurring and the death, injury, or health problems that this may cause. Acceptable risk, on the other hand, represents the level of risk that the entity can tolerate according to the legal regulations and its own occupational health and safety policies. Risk assessment is a method used to anticipate the magnitude of the risk posed by hazards and to determine whether the risk is acceptable, taking into account the adequacy of existing controls.

The OHSAS 18001 standard consists of six titles:

• General conditions (Article 4.1)

Businesses should establish, implement, and maintain an Occupational Health and Safety Management System in accordance with the requirements of this standard, and continuously improve it to ensure its continuity and determine how it meets these requirements.

• Occupational health and safety policy (Article 4.2)

The system should be appropriate to the nature and magnitude of the risks faced by the entity, and should include a commitment to prevent and monitor situations that affect employee health and at least comply with existing legal regulations. In addition, these policies should be documented to ensure that employees are aware of their responsibilities in this respect. It should also be reviewed regularly to ensure that the occupational health and safety policy is properly maintained in the enterprise.

The policy should include reducing risks, a safe working environment, reducing accidents, training employees, ensuring participation, importance given to employees, compliance with legal regulations and continuous improvement.

Occupational health and safety policy is particularly important because it is clear evidence of senior management support, commitments have been communicated to relevant parties and include extensive work. In this respect, this policy should be accessible at every point of the enterprise and should be adopted with regular training for the employees.

Occupational health and safety policy is a document that is supported by management review, internal audit and performance measurement inputs and is the basis of business planning.

• Planning (Article 4.3)

The standard has three subtitles:

• Article 4.3.1: Hazard identification, risk assessment and planning for risk control
• Article 4.3.2: Legal and other requirements
• Article 4.3.3: Objectives
• Article 4.3.4: Occupational health and safety management programs

The entity should prepare a procedure to identify potential hazards, conduct risk assessment studies and identify control methods under the standard. This procedure should take into account routine and non-routine activities, emergencies, the activities of suppliers and visitors, the capabilities of employees, potential hazards arising from outside the enterprise, hazards arising from activities under the control of the entity in the enterprise, the infrastructure, machinery and equipment and legal obligations of the entity.

Risk assessment should be preventive rather than regulatory. From this perspective, risks should be identified, priorities identified and control methods identified. The primary objective in reducing risks should be to eliminate the risk. A risk assessment process should include identifying hazards, identifying employees to be affected, determining the extent of the hazard, deciding whether the risk is acceptable, controlling the risk, and reviewing the plan that is prepared at regular intervals.

The entity should prepare a procedure to determine and achieve the legal regulations related to its field of activity. This procedure should include Labor Law legislation, if the product is exported, legal regulations of that country, agreements with public and non-governmental organizations and customer conditions.

The enterprise should also identify, implement and maintain occupational health and safety objectives at appropriate functions and levels. The objectives need to be measurable and comply with legal and other regulations and be consistent with the occupational health and safety policy described.

Finally, the occupational health and safety management programs to be prepared should be prepared taking into consideration the objectives, tools and time factors determined in this direction.

• Application and operation (Article 4.4)

The standard has seven sub-titles:

• Article 4.4.1: Resources, duties, responsibility, accountability and authority
• Article 4.4.2: Education, awareness and competence
• Article 4.4.3: Consultation and communication
• Article 4.4.4: Documentation
• Article 4.4.5: Document and data control
• Article 4.4.6: Operational control
• Article 4.4.7: Emergency preparedness and actions to be taken in these cases

In an enterprise, the primary responsibility of the Occupational Health and Safety Management System is in senior management. Senior management must provide all resources for the establishment, implementation, continuity and improvement of the system. These are trained and experienced human resources, institutional infrastructure such as machinery, equipment, facilities and support services, technological resources within the scope of the facilities of the enterprise and financial resources especially for the activities requiring investment.

The duties, responsibilities and accountability of managers and employees should be written down and communicated to everyone. In addition, the entity must appoint a management representative. The main responsibilities of the management representative are to ensure the establishment, implementation and maintenance of the system and to report to the senior management about the system's performance, improvement suggestions and improvements.

The entity must ensure that the employees performing tasks that affect the performance of the system are competent in terms of training, experience and competence. For this purpose, it has to determine the training needs of the employees, organize the necessary training and evaluate the effectiveness of the training. All employees should recognize occupational health and safety risks and receive training in risk management.

It is necessary to establish internal communication at various levels and functions by the enterprise, to determine the means of communication with suppliers and visitors and to determine how to communicate with official or private individuals and organizations outside the enterprise. Procedures for which communication methods should be used in which situations should be prepared.

The documents described above and related to all the processes required by the standard should be prepared in line with the occupational health and safety policy, objectives and objectives and should be available to everyone. In the meantime, the adequacy of the documents prepared before publication should be approved, these documents should be reviewed and updated when necessary, changes and current revision situations should be understood, valid documents should be at the point where employees can reach immediately. In addition, if there are external documents, they should be identified and checked. Outdated documents should be discontinued.

Within the framework of the operational control clause of the standard, the measures and control methods necessary for the management of risks determined by the enterprise should be determined. In particular, the use of suppliers, procurement activities, storage and transportation works, hazardous tasks, hazardous materials such as chemical, flammable or explosive materials, and maintenance of machinery and auxiliary facilities are areas of occupational health and safety risks.

Finally, the entity must identify potential emergency situations and identify methods of response to them. Emergency plans should take into account the needs of all interested parties. These procedures should be tested at regular intervals and disruptions should be reviewed.

Contingency plans should include the following topics: definition of emergency situations, definition of employees to be employed, authority and responsibilities of these employees, precautions to be taken for dangerous materials in emergency situations, internal and external communication methods in emergencies, protection of vital machinery and equipment for operation, emergency equipment and materials to be used in emergency situations and the method of evacuation of the emergency room.

• Control (Article 4.5)

The standard has four sub-titles:

• Article 4.5.1: Performance measurement and monitoring
• Article 4.5.2: Accidents, incidents, nonconformities, corrective and preventive actions
• Article 4.5.3: Records and records management
• Article 4.5.4: Examination

The entity must prepare and implement procedures to monitor and measure occupational health and safety performance on a regular basis. To achieve this, performance criteria must be measurable. What is important in performance measurement is monitoring the level of achieving occupational health and safety targets. In addition, the level of effectiveness of controls, operating criteria and compliance with legal regulations should be monitored. All data should be recorded in order to facilitate the analysis of corrective and preventive actions. In the meantime, calibrated, validated and maintained instruments must be used to achieve the expected benefit from measurement and monitoring.

The enterprise should establish procedures for conformity assessment studies and record the results of the assessment. The procedure, at what intervals, by whom and in what manner these studies should be carried out should be included in the procedure.

The enterprise should prepare procedures to identify the factors that cause accidents, incidents and nonconformities, identify corrective and preventive actions, identify opportunities for continuous improvement, and publish the results of all such work.

Records to be kept for business are extremely important. Records are kept to show that the requirements of the standard are consistent with the results obtained. Procedures for keeping, maintaining, correcting records, determining retention time and destroying records should be available. The main records of occupational health and safety are: hazard identification and risk assessment records, accident reports, health surveillance reports, calibration, inspection and maintenance reports, drill reports, training records, process monitoring records, internal audit results, management review meeting records , records for non-business communications, and records for system performance.

Internal audit studies are conducted to ensure compliance with the conditions and planned regulations of this standard, to ensure that the system is properly implemented and maintained, and to ensure the effectiveness of meeting policy and objectives.

• Management review (Article 4.6)

The senior management is obliged to observe the appropriateness, adequacy and effectiveness of the Occupational Health and Safety Management System and to ensure the continuity of the system in the planned periods. The main issues to be addressed in these meetings are:

• Internal audit results
• Compliance with legal regulations that the enterprise has to comply with
• Communications with interested parties, including complaints
• Occupational health and safety performance
• Level of achievement of objectives
• Status of corrective and preventive actions
• Results of decisions taken at the previous meeting