Safety is a topic that has had a presence in our lives from the day we were born.
As a child, your parent made you hold their hand when you crossed the street. When you started driving, you couldn’t get out the door without your mom yelling, “Call me when you get there so I know you’re safe!” after you. You were taught to wear seatbelts, look both ways, chew your food, not swim after you eat (that one’s still questionable), and lock the doors when you left the house.
How safety has been intertwined in our lives makes it easy to overlook. The goal of ISO 45001 is to bring awareness to the health and safety risks faced by companies and their employees and to create a management plan to allow them to mitigate or avoid those risks. This not only allows them to offer a safer work environment, but also increases productivity, reputation, and morale.
When we shift our focus from work to home, we can see the obvious benefits of embracing the 45001 school of thought and applying it to our daily lives. It helps us to recognize risks we may have overlooked to avoid injury and illness, focus on our physical and mental well-being, and even better prepare for change.
Evaluating the Risks We Face
ISO 45001 requires companies to step back and evaluate all aspects of their business to identify risks that could impact the health and safety of their team. When we employ this idea in our daily lives, we will find the overlooked risks facing our families. Some factors play into our level of risk, and we must carefully evaluate the ways in which our actions or inaction will impact them.
Take for example your home security. Everyone wants to feel safe in their home, protect their family, and sleep without the fear of intrusion or disaster. So, how are you managing the risks within your home?
Smoke detectors and escape plans help us manage fire risk. Updated security systems, window and door locks, and point of entry evaluation protect us from unwanted visitors. Cleanliness, a healthy diet, and exercise help us minimize the risk of illness. You’re already doing plenty to protect your family – is there anything you’re missing?
Take the time to step outside of the box and look hard at your daily activities to build a clear picture of how your health and safety are being threatened. Decide if your current approach to those threats is effective, and make improvements as necessary.
Physical and Mental Well-Being
The recognition of the risks we face daily can spark anxiety as you evaluate all how you face threats. Even though we must be diligent in addressing and addressing those daily risks, we must also be aware of the role that fear plays in our decision-making process. No one wants to be hurt or ill but facing risks with too much caution can negatively impact your lifestyle and your psyche.
Following the ISO 45001 process approach to health and safety risk management not only helps you identify unknown risks, but it allows you to set plans in place to ensure your protection from them. It is this preparedness and planning for the best possible outcome that will help to minimize not only the threat but also your anxiety. Having plans in place will help you feel confident in your approach to each day.
Preparing for Change
The acknowledgment of risk coupled with plans to minimize negative impacts results in confidence in your current situation. But change is the only real constant in our lives. ISO 45001 places so much importance on change management that they dedicated an entire clause to the concept.
Changes in our daily lives bring about new potential for risk. As we face decisions, we need to do more than evaluate the potential result of the change – we must also take into consideration how the potential change will affect our health and safety.
A perfect example of risk management through change can be taken from the purchase of a new car. You want something stylish with great gas mileage that can haul your whole family to the beach, but you also want to make sure it has received top safety ratings. The protection it has to offer is more important than most other factors.
What if you approached all major changes with the same focus on safety?
Awareness of how we are keeping ourselves safe and healthy and the acknowledgment of the importance of those practices is the very first step in bringing ISO 45001 concepts into our daily lives. Focus on well-being helps to improve your overall quality of life, so ensuring that you’re doing everything you can to avoid injury and illness – for both you and those who surround you – can play a major role in your day-to-day comfort and security. Don’t let safety practices sit on the back burner and avoid “it won’t happen to me” mindsets. Instead, get in front of the risks you face and make plans to create the best outcome possible.
Interested in finding out more about the ISO 45001 standard, visit Core Business Solutions’ ISO 45001 page.
