Every rail and utility company would rather prevent risks and errors than have to deal with the clean up after an incident. That’s just common sense. When you put effective contractor risk management solutions in place, you can effectively work to prevent disasters or incidents. It’s almost always less costly to prevent a problem than to mitigate one. As a result, the right habits can help save you time, money, and give you peace of mind. Here are three steps you can take to ensure that your risk management is preventative, not reactive.
Effective Contractor Risk Management Tip 1: Contractor Screening
Contractor screening is one of the first steps to making sure you mitigate risk in the people you hire. It’s also the easiest method for problem prevention, saving your organization valuable resources like time and money while protecting the lives that matter most.
A proper screening process can:
- Provide peace of mind and safety
- Onboard workers that will fit the company culture
- Save time and money from reduced training costs for contractors that may not fit the mold
How do you set up a good screening process? The fastest and most reliable way is to find a company that does an industry-specific screening. General screening programs may miss details specific to your industry’s needs, opening you up to more risk.
In addition, it helps to vet the company before you contract with them. Ask them to:
- Explain their protocols to make sure that they have the right process for you
- Show a proven track record for screening contractors
- Provide references to check on their performance
Effective Contractor Risk Management Tip 2: Easy, Reliable, Current ID Cards
Contractor ID cards help you make sure that the only people who are on site are the ones who should be there. Accidents happen when inexperienced people are in places they don’t know how to navigate safely.
Don’t think that you can sit down at your computer and whip out a design for a new set of ID cards. A reliable ID card system incorporates measures that make the cards difficult to fake to prevent people from fraudulently gaining access.
Don’t think you need ID cards? Here are some good reasons to consider them. They are:
- Easy to manage and distribute
- Ease of tracking employees
- Easy to quickly revoke access in the event of a red flag situation
Also, consider the benefits of digital identification, which is definitely the trend moving into the future. Digital IDs allow for increased protection and quick revoke of access when needed. This form of identification also provides real-time tracking technology, which can help you identify where contractors are located at all times and increase the efficiency of processes such as timesheets.
Effective Contractor Risk Management Tip 3: Install Effective Safety Training
Ongoing safety training is a key factor in risk management. Here are some things to consider when developing your organization’s effective safety training:
- Keep it current. Update safety training programs when you acquire new technology and when the industry develops new best practices.
- Keep it consistent over time. Long jobs can lead to complacency, so the best safety training programs focus on upholding standards through the whole project.
- Include special training. When dealing with high-risk projects or high-risk micro jobs, special risks can arise and these circumstances typically require special training to keep your contractors safe.
Contractor risk management requires constant vigilance. The right systems, however, can make a seemingly daunting task much easier. Essentially, enacting a contractor risk management system that enforces good habits will reduce the risk of problems.
If you have questions about keeping your contractors safe on the worksite, do not hesitate to reach out to our team by clicking here or below. Thank you for reading!
*This article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to constitute legal advice.