Build an occupational health and safety management system that protects your people, meets your Workplace Safety and Health duties and stands up to a certification audit.
New to ISO 45001? Read our guide to implementing ISO 45001 in Singapore.
ISO 45001 is the international standard for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system. It sets out how an organisation should identify hazards, assess and control risks, involve its workers, meet its legal obligations and keep improving its safety performance. Organisations can be independently certified against it.
A recognised safety management system turns good intentions into consistent practice — and gives you the evidence to prove it.
A systematic way to find hazards, control risks and learn from incidents and near misses before they cause harm.
Organise and evidence the risk assessments and controls the Workplace Safety and Health Act already expects of you.
Build in the worker consultation and participation that ISO 45001 requires, so safety is owned on the ground, not just on paper.
Show clients, main contractors and tender evaluators a recognised, independently certified safety management system.
A clear 4-step path from gap assessment to certification readiness.
We compare your current safety practices with every ISO 45001 requirement.
Identify hazards, assess risks and set controls using the hierarchy of controls.
Build the policy, objectives, procedures and records your teams will actually use.
Internal audit, management review and preparation for your certification body's audit.
Three standards that work well together. Many organisations align their safety, continuity and risk programmes so they share one set of governance and audits.
| ISO 45001 | ISO 22301 | ISO 31000 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | Occupational health and safety | Business continuity | Risk management across the organisation |
| Main question | How do we prevent work-related injury and ill health? | How do we keep critical activities running through a disruption? | How do we make better decisions about uncertainty? |
| Type of standard | Management system requirements | Management system requirements | Guidelines |
| Certifiable? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Key outputs | OH&S policy, hazard identification and risk assessment, controls, incident investigation | Business impact analysis, recovery strategies, business continuity plans, exercises | Risk framework, risk register, risk treatment plans |
No. ISO 45001 is voluntary. What is mandatory is meeting your duties under the Workplace Safety and Health Act, including the risk assessments required by its Risk Management Regulations. Many organisations adopt ISO 45001 because clients, main contractors or tenders ask for it, and because it gives a structured way to show those duties are being met.
OHSAS 18001 was replaced by ISO 45001, which was published in March 2018. Organisations holding OHSAS 18001 certificates were given a migration period, which ended in 2021, so certification today is to ISO 45001.
Risk assessments are one part of it. ISO 45001 adds the management system around them: leadership commitment, worker consultation and participation, objectives, competence, operational controls, emergency preparedness, incident investigation, internal audit and management review, so that safety keeps improving rather than being a one-off exercise.
Yes. ISO 45001 uses the same high-level structure as other ISO management system standards, so policy, document control, internal audit and management review can be shared across quality, environmental, business continuity and safety systems.
Once your system is in place and has been running long enough to produce records, an accredited certification body audits it, usually in two stages: a review of your documentation and readiness, followed by an on-site audit of how the system works in practice. Certificates are maintained through regular surveillance audits.
It depends on your size, the hazards in your work and how mature your current safety practices are. A smaller organisation with good existing practices can be ready in a few months; multi-site or higher-risk operations usually take longer.
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