Mapping Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems in Portugal: outlook for ISO 45001:2018 adoption

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is a set of activities to prevent injuries and health problems to workers and to provide safe and healthy workplaces (ISO 14001:2015). According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), more than 2.3 million people lose their lives each year in their professional activities and more than 300 million work-related accidents occur. The impact on companies is significant and most of these accidents could have been avoided. Thus, it is necessary that they address health and safety at work in a systematic and integrated way. Given the relevance of ISO International Standards, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has created a Project Committee consisting of a team of specialists in OHS to develop ISO 45001 - Occupational Health and Safety management systems - requirements, which was published in 2018. Among the benefits that ISO envisage will come from the implementation of ISO 45001:2018, some issues assume higher importance, such as increased productivity, reduction of costs of stoppages and losses of production, reduction of costs with insurance and lost work days, improvement of the quality of products or services, among others. This work aims to characterize the Portuguese reality, regarding the relevance given to OHS, independently of the sector of activity or size of the companies. Approximately 500 companies (certified and uncertified) were invited to participate through an online survey, with open and closed questions. After processing the data from the 94 valid responses, it was possible to conclude that 98% of these companies are aware of the benefits that OHSMS provides or could provide. Also, 75% of them comply with ISO 45001 requirements, namely concerning the establishment and monitoring of measurable annual targets for OHS, the implementation of the risk prevention program and internal audits to evaluate OHS concerns.