ISO 45004:2024 PDF

Overview

ISO 45004:2024 - "Occupational health and safety management - Guidelines on performance evaluation" provides practical guidance for establishing and operating processes to monitor, measure, analyse and evaluate occupational health and safety (OH&S) performance. Applicable to organizations of any size, sector or risk level, the standard helps determine whether intended OH&S results are being achieved and supports continual improvement. ISO 45004:2024 can be used independently or alongside OH&S management systems such as ISO 45001:2018.

Key topics and technical requirements

ISO 45004 focuses on performance evaluation as a systematic set of processes. Key technical topics include:

• Performance evaluation process (clause 5): guidance on designing evaluation processes and selecting diverse information sources to avoid incomplete assessments.
• Sources and tools (clause 5.3): inspections, pre‑ and post‑activity reviews, exposure assessments, occupational health surveillance, meetings, focus groups, surveys, interviews, injury/ill‑health tracking, incident investigations and audits.
• Performance indicators (clause 6): selection, life cycle, characteristics and types of indicators - including leading and lagging, quantitative and qualitative, and the value and limitations of benchmarking.
• Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation (clause 8): methods to collect data, address uncertainty, analyse results and make evaluations that inform decision‑making.
• Communication and action (clauses 9–10): presenting results to stakeholders and acting on findings to drive improvement.
• Review of evaluation processes (clause 11): periodic reassessment to ensure processes remain effective and relevant.
• Risk of unintended consequences: guidance to avoid data distortion, under‑/over‑reporting and blaming individuals for systemic deficiencies.
• Normative reference to ISO 45001:2018 and alignment with ISO 45002 guidance where relevant.

Practical applications and users

ISO 45004 is intended for:

• OH&S managers, safety professionals and occupational health practitioners
• Senior management using KPIs for governance and continual improvement
• Internal and external auditors, consultants and compliance teams
• Small, medium and large organizations across industries seeking to design or improve OH&S performance measurement

Typical uses:

• Designing balanced OH&S dashboards combining leading and lagging indicators
• Integrating performance evaluation into management review and business processes
• Improving incident investigation, surveillance and audit programs through better data use
• Avoiding unintended incentive effects (e.g., under‑reporting) by selecting robust indicators
• Supporting regulatory compliance and demonstrable continual improvement

Related standards

• ISO 45001:2018 - Occupational health and safety management systems (normative reference)
• ISO 45002 - Guidance for implementation of ISO 45001 (complementary guidance)

Keywords: ISO 45004:2024, occupational health and safety, OH&S performance evaluation, performance indicators, monitoring and measurement, ISO 45001, leading indicators, lagging indicators, KPIs, continual improvement.