Clause 6.1.1: General
When planning the system, the organization weighs the issues identified under 4.1 and the requirements under 4.2 and 4.3, and identifies the risks and opportunities it must address so as to be confident the system can deliver what it is meant to, prevent or lessen unwanted effects, and keep improving.
What clause 6.1.1 asks
When planning the system, the organization weighs the issues identified under 4.1 and the requirements under 4.2 and 4.3, and identifies the risks and opportunities it must address so as to be confident the system can deliver what it is meant to, prevent or lessen unwanted effects, and keep improving. It takes account of hazards, of risks and opportunities (OH&S ones and others alike), and of legal and other requirements; weighs risks and opportunities that arise from changes and from emergencies; and keeps documented information on its risks and opportunities and on the processes and actions it needs for identifying and addressing them.
Planning has to cover two different kinds of risk: the risks to workers and others from the work, and the risks to the management system itself, such as losing the person who runs it. Opportunities belong in the same register.
Remote work as a changing circumstance. Planning under this clause has to treat the remote arrangement as something that changes: a move of home, a return to the office, a new country, a change of equipment or a change in household circumstances can all change the risk. The public consultation says controls should be reviewed as circumstances change, which makes the trigger list part of the planning process, not an annual form.
Basis: BSI, Arinite. For clause 6.1.1, the public record is a draft guideline and does not state a requirement in terms that this site can quote. The clause 6.1.1 overlay is our reading of the public scope and the named summaries, not the draft text.
Evidence for clause 6.1.1
An auditor will ask for a risk to the system, not to a worker, and for an opportunity that was taken and measured.
- Risk management Register of OH&S risks and opportunities and of risks and opportunities to the management system
- Risk management Documented processes for determining risks and opportunities
- Risk management Evidence that planned changes and emergency scenarios were considered
Where clause 6.1.1 commonly fails
- Only hazard risks captured, not risks to the management system itself
- Opportunities never recorded
- Risks from planned changes not assessed
What to do about clause 6.1.1 before the guidance lands
Add the remote triggers to the planning process: new remote arrangement, change of address, hybrid pattern change, new equipment, return from absence and a reported incident. Give each trigger an owner and a record, and test one trigger end to end.
For clause 6.1.1, do the work that will be right under either instrument. The current requirement for clause 6.1.1 is ISO 45001:2018, and the certificate, if you hold one, is issued against it. The clause 6.1.1 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 6.1.1
← Clause 5.4 | Clause 6.1.2.1 →
Open the full index. The public record behind clause 6.1.1 shows the scope and the themes.
Source for clause 6.1.1: ISO 45001:2018, clause 6.1.1, retrieved 20 October 2026, record at the standards library. The clause 6.1.1 remote overlay rests on the public 45008 record named above. The clause 6.1.1 requirement, evidence and gaps are written from our clause record. Every source.