1 / 6

Enhancing OHS Performance: OHS Certification Strategy

Understand the impact of OHS certification on legislation compliance, challenges faced, and recommendations for improvement.

jessicat
Download Presentation

Enhancing OHS Performance: OHS Certification Strategy

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. OHS Certification as Tool and Strategy in Labour InspectionA project funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers Kåre Hendriksen Master of Environmental Management Personal background: OHS research OHS consultant Former lead assessor at DANAK – the national Danish accreditation body a.o. for OHS certification

  2. Project focus • The interaction between legislation and OHS certification • The validity of OHS certificates • The project is manly based on dialogue with stakeholders Background • Experiences shows that OHS management systems and the certification process can contribute to increase OHS performance in proactive organizations • generally based on single or few voluntary companies • Since 2001 certified organizations in Denmark are by order exempt from initial inspection – caused by the expectation that they has a high OHS performance

  3. Main challenges in OHS certification Increasing public skepticism and suspicion Lack of transparency in the certification process and in the basis for issuing a certificate (ISO 17021) Many cases of non compliance with the legislation and lack of consequences Does not ensure proactive performance and/or continuous improvements Often reduced audit time and/or lack of competences in the audit team – especially regarding ‘soft issues’ as psychological OHS

  4. OHS certification regime • The OHSAS 18001 standard is defined by an exclusive self-appointed group that pay for their participation – which primarily includes certifying and accrediting agencies, the industry’s interest organizations, and to a less extent OHS professionals. • No explicit requirement for OHS performance besides complying with relevant national legislation – thereby incomparable across national frontiers. • Refers indirectly to the national OHS concept – but leaves it to organization management to choose which elements it should be evaluated in relation to. • Almost all requirements are cowered by the Nordic legislation

  5. Denmark October 2009 355 certificates covering app. 2.200 sites

  6. Project recommendations OHS management systems and certification is a recommendable tool for companies to improve their management focus on OHS It is not recommendable to exempt certified companies from initial inspection or random check There is a need for guidelines to OHSAS 18001 referring to the Nordic OHS context and regulation framework The guidelines should be developed in dialogue with all relevant stakeholders Thank you

More Related