ISO 45001
The ISO 45001 standard, published in March of the previous year 2019, is focused on occupational health and safety management systems.
The main objective of this standard is to guarantee the safety and health of workers. It is not new to say that workers are one of the main assets of a company, or even the most important. That is why guaranteeing both your safety and well-being will bring valuable benefits to our organization.
Worker welfare benefits
We must bear in mind that a full-time hired worker usually spends an average of 10 hours a day on the job (including round trip and lunch breaks). For this reason, the company, and more specifically the human resources department, should try to offer the best possible conditions and work environment so that the worker is comfortable.
Good working conditions for workers will directly influence the happiness of it, so indirectly it will become a lot of benefits for the company. Among them we find the following:
- Production and motivation: a worker with good working conditions will feel motivated, valued, and want to work. The explanation is simple, when we do activities that we like and feel valued and motivated by doing them, we are much more productive and efficient.
- Increase of interests and concerns of the worker: when a worker is comfortable in the company, he is much more involved, treating the business as if it were his own and always worrying about improving and acquiring new skills that can be useful both for himself and for the company.
- Decreased stress and absenteeism: poor working conditions could affect the worker on a psychological level. Even causing stress levels so high that they could lead to losses. That is why, conditions that guarantee a good environment can translate into maintaining good worker health and, therefore, a reduction in stress and absenteeism.
- Greater motivation and production: we have previously mentioned worker production. We simply want to remember that a motivated team is much more productive since their desire to work will increase, thus making them carry out their tasks as soon as possible and in the best possible way.
- Retaining talent: all members of a team are important. A company must invest resources in training the worker to perform the tasks for which he has been hired. Good conditions will make the worker want to stay in the company, thus avoiding a talent drain that could have serious consequences for a company.
- Better work environment and relationships: a good environment and conditions improve the work climate, thus making workers willing to help each other by solving problems much earlier.
How to improve the well-being of the worker?
As we have seen, the well-being of the worker can offer great benefits to the company. That is why it is considered in the ISO 45001 standard.
It should be clarified that there is no single way to improve the well-being of workers , therefore, here are a few measures that could help improve it:
- Improvement of the workspace: working uncomfortable, obsolete equipment, or without equipment in resting places is not beneficial for well-being. Therefore, we must try to offer updated equipment and ergonomic material, among other things.
- Recognition: it is something that is very simple and can help improve well-being. On many occasions, a few simple words, or another type of recognition, help the worker feel valued and know that his task is really valuable, which will make him continue to strive to achieve them.
- Training: Henry Ford left us a wise phrase: ” There is only one thing worse than training your employees and leaving them … not training them and staying .” Constant training will make the employee feel that they are taking it into account when it comes to improving and at the same time, it will benefit the company.
- Flexibility: there are times when it is necessary to remember that the worker has a life beyond work. Therefore, giving flexibility so that he can reconcile his work life with his personal life, will improve the well-being of the worker.
- Challenges and objectives: establishing challenges and objectives will incentivize the worker to strive to achieve them and also serve as a guide to know where their efforts should be directed.
- Employee engagement: A leader must listen to his employees. In addition to finding different points of view when making a decision, employees will feel better knowing that their opinion is taken into account in the company.
ISO 45001 software
At the beginning of the article, we were able to appreciate the large number of benefits that worker welfare brings to a company. This is the reason why the ISO 45001 standard takes it into consideration.
The simple fact of implementing an SGSST based on the ISO 45001 standard is a way to improve the well-being of the worker since they will consider that the company is concerned about their health. However, system management can be very tedious, so we invite you to get to know the ISOTools Excellence software, which will greatly help in the tasks of system management.