Clause 8.1.3: Management of change
The organization sets up processes to put in place, and keep under control, planned changes, temporary or permanent, that affect OH&S performance.
What clause 8.1.3 asks
The organization sets up processes to put in place, and keep under control, planned changes, temporary or permanent, that affect OH&S performance. These include: new products, services and processes, or alterations to existing ones (such as where workplaces are and what surrounds them, how work is organized, working conditions, equipment and the workforce); changes to legal and other requirements; new knowledge or information about hazards and risks; and advances in knowledge and technology. It looks at what unintended changes lead to and acts, as needed, to limit any harmful effects.
Change is the most reliable source of new harm. The clause covers permanent and temporary change, and the unintended changes that follow a planned one.
A move, a return or a new pattern is a change. The remote arrangement changes when the worker moves home, changes country, returns from absence, moves from full remote to hybrid, or gets new equipment. Each change can alter the hazard, the law and the emergency arrangement. The public consultation says controls are reviewed as circumstances change, which makes management of change the hinge of the remote system.
Basis: BSI, BSI Standards Development. For clause 8.1.3, the public record is a draft guideline and does not state a requirement in terms that this site can quote. The clause 8.1.3 overlay is our reading of the public scope and the named summaries, not the draft text.
Evidence for clause 8.1.3
An auditor will pick a recent change, including a temporary one, and ask for the risk assessment before it went live and the review after.
- Change management Management of change procedure covering all listed change types
- Change management Change risk assessments before implementation
- Change management Records of unintended changes reviewed and mitigated
- Change management Change log with approvals
Where clause 8.1.3 commonly fails
- Change control limited to plant modifications
- Temporary changes and workforce changes not assessed
- No review of unintended changes after incidents
What to do about clause 8.1.3 before the guidance lands
Add the remote triggers to the management of change process and give each a reassessment step. Include a return-to-office and a return-from-absence trigger. Record the change, the assessment, the control and the date, and test one move end to end.
For clause 8.1.3, do the work that will be right under either instrument. The current requirement for clause 8.1.3 is ISO 45001:2018, and the certificate, if you hold one, is issued against it. The clause 8.1.3 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 8.1.3
← Clause 8.1.2 | Clause 8.1.4.1 →
Open the full index. The public record behind clause 8.1.3 shows the scope and the themes.
Source for clause 8.1.3: ISO 45001:2018, clause 8.1.3, retrieved 20 October 2026, record at the standards library. The clause 8.1.3 remote overlay rests on the public 45008 record named above. The clause 8.1.3 requirement, evidence and gaps are written from our clause record. Every source.