Clause 4.4: OH&S management system
The organization builds an OH&S management system, puts it in place, maintains it and keeps improving it, with the processes it requires and the way those processes interact, as the standard requires.
What clause 4.4 asks
The organization builds an OH&S management system, puts it in place, maintains it and keeps improving it, with the processes it requires and the way those processes interact, as the standard requires.
The system is the set of processes and their interactions, not the manual that describes them. This clause is the test of whether the organization can name the processes it relies on and show how they connect.
Processes that work without on-site supervision. A remote workforce cannot rely on a supervisor seeing the workplace. The processes for reporting, consultation, document access, training and emergency response have to work at a distance and across time zones. The public consultation puts shared responsibility at the centre of the guidance, so the system has to make the worker's part explicit without shifting the organization's duty onto the worker.
Basis: BSI Standards Development, BSI. For clause 4.4, the public record is a draft guideline and does not state a requirement in terms that this site can quote. The clause 4.4 overlay is our reading of the public scope and the named summaries, not the draft text.
Evidence for clause 4.4
An auditor will ask for a process map, who owns each process, and what happens at the handover between two processes.
- Management system establishment System description with process map and interactions
- Management system establishment Process ownership matrix
- Management system establishment Records of system maintenance and improvement
Where clause 4.4 commonly fails
- System is a set of documents with no defined processes or interactions
- No owner for the system as a whole
What to do about clause 4.4 before the guidance lands
Test each system process from a remote worker's position: can they report a hazard, read the current procedure, reach a competent person and get help in an emergency without being on site? Record the test and fix the process that fails.
For clause 4.4, do the work that will be right under either instrument. The current requirement for clause 4.4 is ISO 45001:2018, and the certificate, if you hold one, is issued against it. The clause 4.4 remote working preparation is an extension of the existing duty to a group of workers the system already covers, not a new system and not a reason to rebuild around a draft.
Read across from clause 4.4
Open the full index. The public record behind clause 4.4 shows the scope and the themes.
Source for clause 4.4: ISO 45001:2018, clause 4.4, retrieved 20 October 2026, record at the standards library. The clause 4.4 remote overlay rests on the public 45008 record named above. The clause 4.4 requirement, evidence and gaps are written from our clause record. Every source.