Online Induction >> What is Contractor Management?
Published 17/09/2024

What is Contractor Management and why is it important to manage contractors in the workplace?

Contractor management is an important part of an organisations obligations for managing all contractors engaged to work with the company ranging from cleaners through to maintenance contractors, painters, electrical, plumbing through to low, medium or high risk trades. How they are managed ranges from procurement through to prequalification, compliance checks, induction, subcontractor management, safety review, performance management and work order management and tracking contractors on site. It typically encompasses a contractor management system to prequalify, induct, manage compliance, classify role and risk type, manage licenses, insurances and performance review.

A contractor management system is a tool to manage a series of workflows from initial engagement through to ongoing compliance and individual contractor management. It usually starts with a focus on engagement workflows looking at tools to manage and engage contractors before they arrive on site. It usually starts with a prequalification process where a representative of a contracting company goes through a company level prequalification, permit to work and risk review. Following this if approved, their individual contractors can then register and complete an individual online induction.

Contractor management is an essential aspect of maintaining a safe and productive workplace environment. It involves overseeing the work of contractors, ensuring they comply with relevant regulations and safety standards. Effective contractor management can help organizations avoid legal liabilities and reputational damage by holding contractors accountable for their actions. By implementing robust contractor management processes, businesses can mitigate risks and maintain a high level of occupational health and safety standards within their premises.

Managing contractors in the workplace is crucial for maintaining operational efficiency and minimizing potential disruptions. Contractors play a significant role in various projects, and their performance directly impacts the overall success of a business. Through proper contractor management, organizations can ensure that contractors possess the necessary qualifications and adhere to specific guidelines while working on-site. This approach helps create a cohesive working environment where all parties operate within established boundaries, contributing to the smooth execution of projects and tasks.

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How to Engage Contractors

The induction of contractors typically involves collecting important licenses and tickets from contractors such as evidence of training, company level insurances, presenting induction content to prepare the contractor for working on site, check lists and assessments. Once inducted, the ongoing compliance of a contracting company and its staff is managed with workflows based on tracking movements on site / check in / check out through to work order management and performance management.

Annually re-inductions should be done for all contractors and subcontractors as well as a formal safety review of the contracting company. Common areas managed and reviewed might include incident history, were all hazards reported, contractor staff attendance, complaints, provision of service, policies and procedures they have and followed, insurance history and an overall rating, should this contractor remain on the approved contractors list?

Implementing an effective contractor management system enables an organisation to streamline and automate all these areas. Automatic reminder notifications for insurances and tickets, safety diagnostics, compliance dashboards and predictive learning review are all major elements of smart contractor management.

Contractor Management Benefits

The importance of contractor management lies in its ability to safeguard both employees and contractors from potential hazards and risks associated with their work. By having clear protocols for managing contractors, businesses can enforce safety measures that protect everyone involved in the operations. Furthermore, effective contractor management promotes accountability among contractors, emphasizing their responsibility to uphold industry standards and best practices while carrying out their duties on behalf of the organization.

Contractor management is critical for maintaining compliance with legal requirements, ensuring operational continuity, and promoting a culture of safety within the workplace. By understanding what contractor management entails and why it is important, businesses can develop comprehensive strategies to manage contractors effectively while upholding high standards of professionalism and safety across all projects.

What goes wrong in Contractor Management

The contractor management process can involve a lot of different types of contractors and subcontractors and as part of that a lot of different parts of the contractor management chain can break. Understanding and the relationships between contractors and subcontractors such as knowing who subcontracts to who and why they are subcontracted. This is often a challenge area for many organisations who don't have visibility around this at all. This can lead to many subcontractors engaged by an organisation and they have absolutely no idea who is subcontracting to who or why they are engaged.

Another area is the management of licenses, evidence of training and insurances of contractors and subcontractors. Organisations struggle to have real-time oversight of these important compliance and job ready materials. When a contractor works on site but has expired workers comp insurance, this can lead to a major non compliance event.

Non inducted contractors turning up to site is another major compliance challenge. In this scenario, contractors turn up to conduct work on site and they haven't done the Online Induction. In the event of an emergency or a incident, non induction contractors could pose a significant safety risk to both themselves and their colleagues. They could also cause an incident or hazard by leaving the workplace in an unsafe state after their works due to be unfamiliar with important workplace procedures and policies about working on site. Non induction contractors could also be exposed to hazards that they otherwise would be trained on during the induction.

What goes right in Contractor Management

When you have contractor management software to manage contractors in the workplace, the entire process of engaging new contractors and subcontractors can be streamlined and enhanced using an online Contractor induction. This creates a high impact and engaging contractor job ready, safety focused and new starter experience, preparing them for the workplace in advance of their contractor works.

Tools to manage permit to work, SWMS's, JSA's, SWP's can completely streamline the entire acknowledgement, review, safety checks and approvals process.

The automatic reminder of contractor licenses, certifications and evidence of training to ensure contractors remain up to date and compliant. This ensures automatically that as insurances or evidence of training expire, the contractor is prompted to re-supply them to the organisation as proof of validity to conduct the work and to ensure they are qualified and compliance for those works.

Online Contractor Management

An online contractor management system is a common platform for engaging all new and recurring contractors and ensuring they go through a consistent and comprehensive contractor management process.

If you're looking to set up or enhance your contractor management process, try creating one online right here.