Clause 6.1.4: Planning action
The organization plans actions on its risks and opportunities and on its legal and other requirements, and also plans how it will get ready for and respond to emergencies.
What clause 6.1.4 asks
The organization plans actions on its risks and opportunities and on its legal and other requirements, and also plans how it will get ready for and respond to emergencies. It plans how those actions will be built into and carried out through the processes of its OH&S management system or other business processes, and how their effectiveness will be judged. In planning, it takes account of the hierarchy of controls and of what the system produces, and it considers good practice, the technology options available, and its financial, operational and business requirements.
Planning action is where the hierarchy of controls stops being a slogan. The clause asks how each action will be integrated into a process and how its effectiveness will be judged.
Controls that fit a workplace you do not control. The hierarchy of controls still applies, but the organization may not own the workplace. Elimination and substitution can mean changing how the work is done; engineering controls can mean supplying a suitable chair, desk, monitor, lighting or filter; administrative controls cover workload, breaks, check-ins and reporting; PPE is the last resort. The consultation release says the guidance covers risk assessment and controls, and the practitioner summary names the hierarchy.
Basis: BSI, Arinite. For clause 6.1.4, the public record is a draft guideline and does not state a requirement in terms that this site can quote. The clause 6.1.4 overlay is our reading of the public scope and the named summaries, not the draft text.
Evidence for clause 6.1.4
An auditor will pick an action and ask what it was meant to change, where it sits in the hierarchy, and how the organization knows it worked.
- Action planning Action plans with owners, dates and integration points
- Action planning Evidence the hierarchy of controls was applied in selecting actions
- Action planning Effectiveness evaluation records for completed actions
Where clause 6.1.4 commonly fails
- Actions default to PPE and procedures with no consideration of elimination or substitution
- No plan for evaluating whether actions worked
- Actions not integrated into operational processes
What to do about clause 6.1.4 before the guidance lands
For each significant remote risk, record the control, the level in the hierarchy and why a higher level was not used. Separate what the organization supplies from what the worker provides, and make the boundary explicit in the remote working agreement.
For clause 6.1.4, do the work that will be right under either instrument. The current requirement for clause 6.1.4 is ISO 45001:2018, and the certificate, if you hold one, is issued against it. The clause 6.1.4 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 6.1.4
← Clause 6.1.3 | Clause 6.2.1 →
Open the full index. The public record behind clause 6.1.4 shows the scope and the themes.
Source for clause 6.1.4: ISO 45001:2018, clause 6.1.4, retrieved 20 October 2026, record at the standards library. The clause 6.1.4 remote overlay rests on the public 45008 record named above. The clause 6.1.4 requirement, evidence and gaps are written from our clause record. Every source.