Automating and Streamlining Management Reviews for ISO 45001

“We never say: Great, our job is done! We’re all set from a safety standpoint. In fact, our job is to be paranoid. We constantly look for what can go wrong; how do we improve this process; how do we mitigate this potential safety risk.” This is what we heard from a safety leader at a manufacturing company when one of our product managers interviewed her.

ComplianceQuest’s Safety Solution has been built keeping these factors in mind. Health and Safety teams are looking for a Safety Management System (SMS) that facilitates continuous improvement. The organization is constantly changing, growing, and scaling; regulatory requirements are evolving; and the SMS needs to be flexible to adapt as these changes happen.

Also, it is not only about the health and safety team. ISO 45001:2018 standard lays stress on the involvement of the top management in safety processes to ensure continuous improvement. It requires periodic review of the Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S) management system by executive leaders to assess its effectiveness and introduce improvements or corrections as needed.

According to the standard, a Management Review Meeting is not essential but management oversight is a must. Having said that it is best for the safety team to periodically meet with and brainstorm with the executive team with the following approaches:

• Conduct data-driven review meetings on a periodic basis
• Run these meetings with the right dashboards, metrics, leading and lagging indicators
• Use an EHS solution that serves as a single source of truth and pulls up data during the review meeting immediately, without having to look for the data and sharing it at a later time
• Track and monitor processes that need changes or improvements
• List down action items post every review meeting, supported with the right documentation and data

These reviews should be conducted periodically to assess the suitability, adequacy, and effectiveness of the safety management system. Suitability refers to whether the management system is the right fit for the organization and aligns with its culture, operations, and business systems. It should be implemented appropriately and should achieve the intended goals.

What are the ISO 45001 Standard Requirements for Management Reviews?

The critical requirement of the ISO 45001 standard is that executive leaders must do the following:

• Identify the areas of change and improvement on internal and external issues that impact the safety management system
• Assess the system’s effectiveness in complying with the OH&S policy and meeting the objectives
• Review inputs from the OH&S management system, including:
  • Internal audit findings such as the need for corrective actions, opportunities for improvement and investigation, or best practices that should be shared with the rest of the organization
  • Monitoring and measuring KPIs to assess the effectiveness of the management system
  • Evaluating compliance with regulatory requirements, identifying gaps, and creating benchmarks of best practices
  • Results of employee interviews and leveraging their inputs and observations for improvement
  • Inputs from external stakeholders, such as complaints, feedback, etc. to improve safety management.

In addition, the standard also requires the top management to identify the nature and frequency of safety incidents, the availability of sufficient resources, and the corrective action needed to address them. Tracking the change in risk and opportunity trends is also an important requirement and whether the policy and objectives continue to remain effective is another responsibility of the top management.

Timely response to the findings of investigations, following up on earlier management review actions and ensuring they are completed, and keeping up to date with industry trends are also part of the top management’s responsibility as mandated by ISO 45001.

How can Automation Help With Management Review and ISO 45001 Compliance?

As the organization grows, so does the complexity. Changes in regulations also need to be reflected in the safety policy and objectives. For businesses, this is time away from core activities and can become a burden even though safety is a critical aspect of the business. Manual processes can lead to errors or poor response to the changes and lead to non-compliance and penalties.

Automation of Management Reviews helps with access to data that provides a strategic and operational advantage. With the CQ Management Review solution, you can have comprehensive control over how management reviews are conducted to not only meet regulatory requirements but also ensure all key stakeholders have a clear picture with regards to risks and impacts and to collaborate effectively to improve overall safety performance.

Automation also streamlines the review process by providing a single platform for the entire review lifecycle right from:

• Scheduling
• Managing calendars
• Collecting data
• Managing attendees
• Setting the agenda and creating meeting notes
• Tracking issues
• Identifying risks and trends
• Recording data-driven decisions
• Identifying opportunities for improvements.

By providing visibility into all the review-related processes, the solution enables assigning responsibilities for follow-up actions, tracking progress, and preparing all documents for standards and regulatory audits in the future.

Unique Advantages of CQ Management Review Software

One of the key features of the CQ Management Review solution is the next-generation Safety Control Tower that helps to visualize key metrics through highly interactive dashboards and charts. Executive leaders can make the management review process more meaningful by using data and insights in real-time, thereby enabling the management to keep pace as the business evolves and scales. It also allows drilling down of certain operational metrics, allowing management to dive deeply into data and analyze specific KPIs as needed.

CQ.AI, ComplianceQuest’s artificial intelligence framework, helps leaders with predictive intelligence and actionable insights, enabling focus on metrics that matter.

It is also a mobile-ready solution that allows even traveling executives to securely access data anytime, from anywhere. As it is integrated with risk management, the findings can help to identify risk factors and implement controls for mitigation. Overall, it is designed to involve various stakeholders including the health and safety team, quality leaders, executive management, regulatory affairs teams, and operations personnel as well.

If you wish to improve your compliance with ISO 45001 and enhance the effectiveness of your safety management review meetings, visit: https://www.compliancequest.com/management-review-software/