What this is
What is an improvement suggestion record?
What is an improvement suggestion record?
It is a short-form record, built against ISO 45001 cl.10.3, that captures an idea from any worker along with what it would change and who could plausibly own it. It is deliberately lighter than a project record: a sentence or two on the problem, a quick assessment against safety, quality, efficiency and environment, and a decision. It exists to lower the barrier to raising something, not to force people through a business case.
How is a suggestion different from a corrective action?
A corrective action responds to something that has already gone wrong and requires a root-cause fix. A suggestion is proactive — it did not follow an incident, and it does not carry the same obligation to close out. Where a suggestion turns out to need formal root-cause work, the correct move is to raise a CAPA and reference it, not to stretch the suggestion record to cover it.
Who is expected to complete this record?
Any operator, supervisor, manager, contractor or agency worker can raise one — the field for who raised it is a fixed choice specifically so the scheme is not read as a management-only channel. Assessment and the decision typically sit with a supervisor or area manager, but the initial entry is designed for whoever had the idea.
Scope
When is an improvement suggestion record required?
This record is one step in a larger programme. Using it for work that belongs to a neighbouring template produces records that are hard to report on later, and a suggestion scheme that quietly absorbs project-sized work stops looking credible to the people using it.
Use this template when
- Someone has an idea for a change and it has not yet been evaluated by anyone
- The idea is small enough to assess and decide within a month, not a multi-month project
- A new record is needed; each one gets its own ID in the form ISR2-2026-000
- You are running the Safety Culture and Engagement programme and this is one of its intake steps
- A linked record needs this one to exist, most often a CAPA or a Continual Improvement Project that started life here
Do not use it for
- Continual Improvement Project Record, which records a structured improvement project, from problem statement through measurement to sustained result — use it once the idea needs a baseline and a project lead.
- Idea to Implementation Tracker, which is the operations-side pipeline for ideas already through triage, rather than the first-contact intake this record is for.
- Corrective Action Effectiveness Trend, which reviews whether corrective actions across the site actually prevent recurrence, by tracking repeat events — not for a suggestion that never followed an incident.
- Benchmarking Record, which compares performance against another site or an industry figure — a suggestion is a local idea, not a comparison exercise.
- Anything outside KnowComply, which belongs in the workspace that owns that process.
Compliance mapping
Which ISO 45001 cl.10.3 requirements does this satisfy?
ISO 45001 cl.10.3 requires organisations to actively promote worker participation in identifying opportunities for continual improvement — this record is the intake mechanism, and each field maps to a specific part of that obligation.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| cl.10.3 | Provide a route for any worker to raise an improvement opportunity, not only management | Header |
| cl.10.3 | Record who raised it and where, so participation can be tracked by area and by role | Header |
| cl.10.3 | Evaluate the suggestion against safety, quality, efficiency and environmental outcomes before deciding | Assessment |
| cl.10.3 | Consider practicality — estimated cost and whether it can be trialled quickly — as part of the evaluation | Assessment |
| cl.10.3 | Respond to the person who raised the suggestion, including where it is declined | Handling |
| cl.10.3 | Assign the suggestion to someone competent to assess it, within a defined timeframe | Handling |
| cl.10.3 | Where a suggestion becomes a structured improvement, link forward to the record that carries it | Related records |
| cl.10.3 | Confirm implementation, measure time to feedback, and consider whether the change should be shared to other areas | Outcome |
What it does not cover
- A suggestion left at Open with no assessment scores, which means nobody has evaluated it against safety, quality, efficiency or environment yet.
- Decision recorded with no reason given, which leaves the person who raised it unable to understand why it was declined.
- Acknowledged well outside a week with no note explaining the delay, which is exactly the pattern that causes suggestions to stop arriving.
- Implemented marked Yes with no implementation date, which makes the time-to-feedback metric impossible to calculate.
- Action Required marked Yes with no CAPA ID entered, which breaks the link this record depends on to hand structured work elsewhere.
Global
Improvement Suggestion Record requirements by country
ISO 45001 sets the requirement for worker participation everywhere it is adopted, but the weight that participation carries — and what a regulator or auditor expects to see evidenced — differs by jurisdiction.
ISO 45001:2018 cl.10.3 and IAF accreditation rules
Continual improvement is a certifiable clause, and third-party auditors sample suggestion records specifically to check that participation is genuine, not decorative.
An auditor who finds suggestions with no decision, or a scheme with no suggestions logged at all, treats that as a gap against the clause — not just a missed opportunity.
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, s.2(6) and the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977
Employers have a statutory duty to consult recognised worker representatives on matters affecting health and safety, which this record supports but does not by itself discharge.
A suggestion scheme is good practice evidence of engagement, but where workers are represented, formal consultation channels still need to run alongside it — this record cannot substitute for that duty.
OSHA General Duty Clause, 29 U.S.C. §654(a)(1)
OSHA does not mandate a suggestion scheme, but voluntary participation programmes such as VPP expect documented worker involvement in hazard identification.
There is no direct citation risk from a weak suggestion scheme, but a site pursuing VPP or a similar recognition status will be asked to show exactly this kind of record.
How to complete it
How to complete an improvement suggestion record, step by step
Filling in the fields is mechanical. The judgement calls are what make the record defensible when someone asks why a suggestion went one way rather than another.
The form has no hard cut-off, so the call is made on scope: if it needs a baseline measurement and a named lead before you can even trial it, it has already outgrown this record and belongs in CMP-051.
"No" without a reason is technically complete but defeats the point of the field. A defensible decline names the constraint — cost, feasibility, conflict with another control — in enough detail that the same idea raised again gets a consistent answer.
If the assessment surfaces an actual hazard rather than an opportunity, escalate it to a corrective action immediately rather than working it through the suggestion cycle — the suggestion record is not built to carry an open hazard for a month while it waits for a monthly decision.
This field is easy to mark Not relevant by default. It should only be marked that way when the change genuinely cannot transfer — a local layout fix — not simply because nobody has checked with the other areas yet.
What auditors find
Most common improvement suggestion record findings
Six patterns account for most of the audit findings against suggestion schemes, and each one traces back to a specific field being skipped rather than the scheme itself being absent.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Suggestions sit at Open for months with no assessment recorded | cl.10.3 | Set a review cadence — weekly is enough for most sites — where every Open suggestion is either assessed or explicitly deferred with a date. |
| Assessment scores are filled in but no decision follows | cl.10.3 | Make the Decision field the trigger for closing the record; an assessed-but-undecided suggestion should show on a report as incomplete, not as done. |
| Declines carry no stated reason | cl.10.3 | Require the reason as free text alongside the Decision option, not just the choice itself, so the answer is auditable months later. |
| Implemented suggestions have no implementation date, so days-to-feedback cannot be calculated | cl.10.3 | Treat Implementation Date as required whenever Implemented is Yes, and reject records that mark one without the other. |
| "Action Required" is marked Yes with no CAPA ID or action owner attached | cl.10.3 | Block sign-off on Action Required = Yes until both the CAPA ID and Action Owner fields are populated. |
| Suggestions that would transfer to other areas are never actually shared | cl.10.3 | Route anything marked Shared With Other Areas = Yes to a standing agenda item at the next cross-area meeting, rather than leaving the flag as a record-only note. |
Case in point
Case in point: the suggestion that sat for four months
A boning hall operator raised a suggestion about a repetitive hand movement causing fatigue. It was logged, categorised as Safety, and then left at Open while the area went through a shift pattern change. Nobody assessed it, nobody told the operator anything, and by the time someone found it during a routine audit, four months had passed with the record still showing no decision.
The fix wasn't complicated — a guard rail adjustment that took an afternoon — but the damage to participation had already been done. Two other suggestions from the same shift had gone unraised in the interim. The audit finding wasn't about the fix; it was about the acknowledgement field never being touched, which is the earliest and cheapest point at which the failure could have been caught.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
5 sections
- Reference
- CMP-050
- Archetype
- Record
- Record ID
- ISR2-2026-000
- Scoring
- Suggestions implemented
- Direction
- High is good
- Singleton
- No
- Basis
- ISO 45001 cl.10.3
- Links
- Links CAPA, Committees
- Tags
- Improvement
- Sections
- 5
- Fields
- 39
- Follow up fields
- 3
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 3
Header
13 fieldsSuggestion ID*
Auto sequence. Format ISR2-2026-000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Completed By*
Site*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
Raised By*
Area*
Suggestion*
Category*
Problem It Solves
Raised By Whom*
Suggestions Stop Arriving Within A Month
Nothing kills an improvement scheme faster than silence. A quick no with a reason keeps the channel open far better than a slow maybe.
Assessment
6 fieldsWould Improve Safety*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Would Improve Quality*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Would Improve Efficiency*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Would Improve Environment*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Estimated Cost Reasonable*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Could Be Trialled Quickly*
- Yes3 pts
- With effort1 pt
- No0 pts
Handling
6 fieldsAcknowledged Within A Week*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Assessed By The Right Person*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Decision Made Within A Month*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Reason Given For The Decision*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Person Told The Outcome*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Recognition Given Where Due*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Related records
1 fieldImprovement Project ID
Where the suggestion became a project.
Links to CMP-051 Project ID
Outcome
13 fieldsDecision*
Implemented*
- Yes3 pts
- In progress1 pt
- No0 pts
Days To Feedback*
Shared With Other Areas*
- Yes3 pts
- Not relevant3 pts
- No0 pts
Implementation Date
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
Area Manager*
Signature*
Compliance Lead*
Second Signature*
CMP-050 · record IDs look like ISR2-2026-000 · Links CAPA, Committees
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
The record itself is quick to fill in. What actually determines whether a suggestion scheme survives is whether every entry gets chased to a decision — and that chasing is where a form on its own runs out of road.
Flags suggestions categorised as Safety that have sat unassessed past the acknowledgement window, so a safety-relevant idea doesn't wait behind lower-priority entries.
Picks up suggestions marked as improving quality and checks whether the resulting change, once implemented, actually shows up in the quality metrics it was supposed to move.
Tracks suggestions through to the Idea to Implementation Tracker or a Continual Improvement Project once they outgrow this record, so the handoff isn't lost between systems.
Rolls open suggestions, overdue decisions and missing reasons into one view across every area, and holds any write it proposes for your approval before it touches a record.
This template lives in KnowComply — audit and governance. Audit programmes, legal register, management review, risk and certification.
Meet KnowComply→Glossary
Improvement Suggestion Record definitions and key terms
- Continual improvement
- The ISO management-system requirement to systematically improve suitability, adequacy and effectiveness over time, rather than treating the system as fixed once certified.
- Worker participation
- The active involvement of workers, not just their representatives, in hazard identification, risk assessment and improvement activity — a named requirement under ISO 45001.
- Suggestion scheme
- A standing, low-friction channel for any worker to propose a change, distinct from a formal audit finding or incident report.
- Trial-ability
- Whether a proposed change can be tested at small scale before a full rollout decision is made — assessed here as part of practicality, alongside cost.
- CAPA
- Corrective and preventive action — the formal record used when a suggestion or finding turns out to require root-cause analysis rather than a simple fix.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about improvement suggestion record
Does every suggestion need a full root-cause assessment?+
No. That is precisely what distinguishes this record from a CAPA or a Continual Improvement Project. The assessment here is a quick four-dimension scan plus cost and trial-ability, meant to take minutes, not a formal investigation.
What happens if a suggestion is declined?+
It still needs a Decision, a reason, and confirmation that the person who raised it was told. A declined suggestion with those three things present is a complete record; one without them is not, regardless of how sound the decline was.
Can a suggestion be raised anonymously?+
The template requires a Raised By user field, so anonymous submission is not native to this record. Sites wanting an anonymous channel typically run it separately and only bring ideas into this record once someone is willing to be named as the assessor's point of contact.
How is this scored, and why?+
Scoring is suggestions implemented, where high is good. The assessment and handling fields feed that score, but the score is a proxy for a healthy scheme, not a target to game — a site that declines everything quickly will score badly even though every field is technically complete.
What links to this record?+
It links forward to CAPA and to Committees — a suggestion that becomes formal corrective work references its CAPA ID here, and a suggestion trend can be tabled at a safety committee without duplicating the underlying data.
Is this a singleton, or one per suggestion?+
One per suggestion. Each gets its own ID in the form ISR2-2026-000, so volume and participation can be tracked over time rather than overwritten.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Safety Culture and Engagement
A measured culture position, with interventions matched to the maturity level you actually have.
Management System Governance
One integrated system rather than four running in parallel and exhausting the same people.
Continuous Improvement
Improvements with a measured baseline, and ideas that always get an answer.
Used together in Safety Culture and Engagement
Safety Observation
A short record of how a task was actually done, noting both safe practice and risk
Behaviour Based Observation
Looks at a specific set of behaviours agreed with the workforce, such as line of fire, body position and tool use
Leadership Safety Walk
A senior leader spends time in the workplace talking with workers about how the work really goes
Safety Coaching Record
Records a coaching conversation after an at risk practice was seen
Critical Task Observation
Watches a high risk task from start to finish against its procedure
Peer Observation
Workers observe each other and give feedback directly, with no supervisor involved
More in Improvement
Continual Improvement Project Record
Records a structured improvement project, from problem statement through measurement to sustained result
Benchmarking Record
Records a comparison of performance or practice against another site, a peer or an industry figure
Corrective Action Effectiveness Trend
Reviews whether corrective actions across the site actually prevent recurrence, by tracking repeat events
Management System Integration Review
Reviews how well the safety, quality, environmental and energy systems work as one rather than in parallel
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- ISO 45001:2018 — cl.10.3 Continual improvement
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 — s.2(6)
- Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977
- OSHA General Duty Clause — 29 U.S.C. §654(a)(1)
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.