What is ISO? Does My Industry Need it?
ISO stands for the International Organisation for Standardisation, an independent, non-governmental organisation who create standards. These standards exist for businesses to ensure high-quality products, good health and safety procedures, eco-friendly practices, and more.
ISO certification covers numerous industries, and each certification has different standards and different criteria to meet.
Your industry will benefit from ISO certification as: it will boost profits; simplify risk management, improve employee engagement, improve relationships with stakeholders, create happier clients and create reliable practices to ensure your business is running in the best way possible.
More On ISO
ISO standards are management systems that will help you monitor processes such as health and safety for example. There are numerous standards and different industries benefit from different standards.
ISO 45001: Construction, Engineering, Manufacturing, Health, Hotels & Hospitality…
ISO 45001 specifies requirements for an Occupational Health & Safety Management System. Millions of industries choose ISO 45001 so that they can demonstrate their commitment to having a safe workplace. 45001 is applicable for any organisation that wishes to enforce its health and safety by eliminating hazards and minimising risks.
Although every industry could benefit from ISO 45001, there are certain industries where it should be a must, an example being construction. Falling from a height remains one of the most common causes of work-related injuries and the risks are well known, ISO 45001 can implement strategies that will prevent events such as falling. Workers falling from a height can not only lead to fatal injuries, but in the worst-case scenarios, it can lead to death and it is more common than you would think. Accidents such as these can result in a bad name of course but also a fine.
As well as construction, it is very useful that ISO 45001 is implemented in a healthcare environment. When a person is in healthcare, their whole well-being is in someone else’s hands, therefore it is extremely important that correct and secure measures are put into place so that service users, as well as workers, are not at risk of harm.
Hotels and hospitality also fall under the bracket which could use ISO 45001, as there are so many risks for service users and staff. Even when walking through a corridor there could be a hazard that could result in a worker tripping and potentially having a serious injury because it wasn’t logged. Therefore, having strategies to reduce this type of incident from occurring is crucial.
ISO 27001: IT Companies, Support, Software, Cloud & Technology Services
ISO 27001 is a standard that improves confidentiality services that are already in place to protect important information and documents. Over 2000 cyber-attacks happen daily and, in this day and age working online and on a computer is the norm which puts your business at a risk.
It is vital that confidentiality is secure as you are holding employees’ information as well as service users’ information. When a data breach occurs, your worker’s or service users’ information such as name, birth date, address, and bank information can be leaked or even sold which puts these people at risk of identity theft.
If there was a breach in a cloud company, for example, it could result in millions of passwords being leaked which means that people’s documents are unprotected. As a company, this will heavily impact you not only financially, but it could break your trust with your customers as they can feel at threat of it happening again.
If a support company experiences a data breach, they are losing control over personal data which could increase the risk of fraud that breaches GDPR legislation. ISO 27001 will give your company the opportunity to reduce the likelihood of experiencing a data breach. This is achieved through more employee training, limiting access to certain documents, and advice on what is best for your business.
Getting Started with ISO
If you want to prioritise health and safety and information security and reap the rewards of both standards, then becoming certified in ISO 27001 and 45001 is for you.
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