How to Manage ISO Requirements Across a Property Portfolio

One of the biggest challenges of managing a property portfolio is ensuring ISO compliance across all of your properties. Coordinating the health, safety, and maintenance procedures can be difficult, especially if you have hundreds of properties to keep track of. 

But it doesn't have to be.

By using the right property management software, you can effectively coordinate all the health, safety, and maintenance work across all of your properties, while monitoring progress in numerous key actions. 

Here's how. 

What Does It Mean to Be ISO Compliant?

First, what does it mean to be ISO compliant?

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) sets the industry standard for health and safety. They ensure organisations are doing everything they can to improve security, minimise risks, and provide better conditions for their workers and tenants. To be compliant you have to ensure you meet the legal standard. This means staying up-to-date with things like fire risk assessments, area inspections, and asbestos checks – everything must comply with the legal requirements for your building. 

If ISO standards aren’t met, you run the risk of legal action if an accident or injury occurs in one of your properties. This can take the shape of penalties, fines, and even prosecution – so it’s not worth taking the chance.

How Do You Manage ISO Requirements?

With the transition to ISO 45001 from OHSAS 18001 well underway, it's important that you're doing everything you can to manage your accreditation and ensure you meet the standard. 

So, here's how to better manage your ISO compliance across your portfolio of properties. 

Track Upcoming Tasks & Follow-Up

When managing a large portfolio, ensuring maximum visibility of upcoming tasks, jobs, and inspections is essential. You need to be able to see what work is in the pipeline, its progress, and whether follow-up is needed. 

By taking a holistic approach to task management, you can start to build a picture of how individual tasks contribute to the overall compliance. Think of each task as small pieces that (once assembled) fit together to form a complete picture. 

It's advisable to use a health and safety system that lets you keep track of these tasks and lets your workforce easily access the necessary details.

Set Reminders for Recurring Work 

None of us have a perfect memory. We're human after all, we make mistakes. Likewise, as your property portfolio grows, so does the margin for error. 

You can help combat this by setting up real-time reminders for recurring tasks; such as weekly inspections, fire risk assessments, and annual maintenance. This will help you stay up-to-date and ensure outstanding work doesn't slip through the cracks. 

It's also worth assigning priority tags to the appropriate jobs. That way, you can effectively communicate important tasks to your workers, and delegate much more easily. 

Keep a Detailed History of Past Audits

There's nothing worse than losing vital documents or associated paperwork for a property. If you lose track of important compliance certifications, such as fire and gas safety, you put yourself at risk of non-compliance. This can have dire consequences if a preventable incident occurs.

That's why it's important to keep a comprehensive history of successful audits and completed tasks. This makes it much easier to manage your compliance certifications. If everything is recorded in one place, you won't have any trouble accessing it when you need it. 

Plus, if an accident does happen, your compliance history can prove your company isn't at fault –so long as you've done all you can to meet the standard's requirements.

The Simple Way to Maintain Compliance

Managing compliance across an entire portfolio is a challenging feat. With so many things to keep track of, adhering to all of your health and safety demands can be overwhelming.

It's much easier to use a centralised platform to handle all your data. 

With an effective health and safety management system, you can manage all of your health and safety concerns on one intuitive platform.

For property managers, everything you need to manage multiple projects, places, and people will be available at your fingertips. It's the most important thing to consider to keep your data secure and easily accessible. 

Change Is Coming

If your business is currently accredited to OHSAS 18001, you have until 12 March 2021 to make the jump to ISO 45001. 

If you aren't already transitioned to ISO 45001 by that date, you'll find yourself without an accredited occupational health and safety management system. So, it's important to be in the know about the switch. 

For all of the key changes and essential information you need to know about the move from ISO 18001 to 45001, download our checklist.