Contractor Safety: Spans of Controls and Practical Tips

Contractor Management

Contractors are primarily engaged for their specialist skills or to assist in resourcing up an organisation, often this can attract feeling of pressure to deliver and perform, particularly because the work is generally short in duration for a project or contract. 

FEFO Consulting reviewed the benchmark data available through the Health and Safety Index and found Contractors felt more pressured to compromise safety whilst work (19% worse than employee results) and were more likely to compromise safety by taking shortcuts (12% worse than employee’s). Many may say, that is the Contracting game! Which is unacceptable morally and legally. Keeping people safe whilst they are working for or on behalf of your business must be at the heart of any contractor management approach, it can be easy to think Contractor Management and think compliance!

Addressing Contractor Management

When building out your framework to address contractor safety management in your organisation, an important step to be considered is the span of control and influence you have with the Contractor in relation to health and safety.

Managing health and safety when contracting is not black and white. In, fact there are different risk profiles, different contract types and stakeholder requirements.

Once the assessment on the span of control or category or assessment of risk profile is completed, health and safety responsibilities and accountabilities throughout the duration of the work or contract can be applied with consideration given to the appropriate.

If you set clear expectations early in the contractor lifecycle, this builds greater levels of trust, and can help to minimise the administrative burden of micromanaging contractors with respect to health and safety requirements.

Best Practice

Often organisations ask what Best Practice is when it comes to Contractor Management, there are many aspects that can demonstrate the path to best practice, the truth is not all businesses are created equal. Different industry, needs, stakeholders and capability will influence what is best practice and what is practically needed to address Contractor Management in a business.

Qualities of a best practice system may include some of the of following items, applying all of them to your organisation may not be a fit for your risk profile, certainly reviewing them and considering the qualities of each of these will assist with driving improvements in your contractor safety performance.

Simplifying Contractor Management across the lifecycle of a Contractor can be challenging, if you are unsure where to start, when addressing Contractor Management:

• Measure – Evaluate current contractor management performance based on your unique current vs. desired state
• Focus – Understand areas of focus to prioritise what is important to improve
• Act – Develop an action plan, identify expertise and resources needed to enable improvements that matter! 

Further information on a practical, risk-based approach to Contractor Management can be found here.

Click below button to download our ‘4 Steps to Contractor Safety’ guide.