5 Reasons to Explore Contractor Compliance Management
Managing contractors, especially when you engage a large number of them, can be a complex and challenging undertaking. It is essential that your legal obligations are met, and that you keep a record of all relevant documentation required to prove this. At a minimum, you need to ensure they are competent, licenced and insured.
Contractor compliance is fundamental; without it, you put both your business and the lives of your workers at risk. When your contractors meet all the criteria of your organisation, you will see operating costs reduce, an increase in contractor retention and an overall boost in productivity. With all this to gain surely, it’s worth considering ways to stay on top of contractor compliance and exploring what external contractor compliance management providers have to offer?
What is Contractor Compliance?
Contractor compliance is the process of ensuring that your contractors and suppliers adhere to the specific requirements of your organisation. It is vital that the compliance criteria are thorough and complete, only finalised after consulting the relevant internal stakeholders, seeking expert advice from external consultants and taking into account the appropriate legislation and industry best practices. The criteria is then often reflected in the terms of the contract, so contractors need to explicitly agree to its compliance prior to starting work. It’s all about reducing the risk exposure to the business. Ensuring contractor compliance will reduce workplace safety risks, financial risks, insurance liabilities and legal risks to both the business and its officers.
How Contractor Compliance Management Can Help
To create an effective contractor compliance process, you need to have an organised framework that enables you to prequalify contractors, monitor their activities and stay on top of documentation expiry. With all the work needed to ensure your contractors remain compliant, it’s well worth considering engaging an external provider to help. Here are five ways that a contractor management company can help you reach your compliance goals:
1. Stay on the Right Side of the Law
The documentation you collect from your contactors proves compliance and forms the building blocks of a due diligence process. By having documentation as proof of a contractor's qualifications, licences and registrations, you have the audit trail you need so you can demonstrate a process for exercising your legislated due diligence. Contractor management providers are able to do all the leg work for you, ensuring that you know exactly what documentation and evidence you need from your contractors to prove compliance. What’s more, they can help you to check what you receive from your contractors is valid and authentic. Verification is a key (and time-consuming) component of the compliance management process.
2. Meet Your Workplace Health and Safety Obligations
Workplace health and safety is another key concern with regard to contractor engagement. You need to ensure that your contractors are kept safe, receive clear information regarding your safety processes and are fully aware of their workplace health and safety obligations. A contractor management provider can ensure that all contractors not only receive the necessary health and safety information specific to your sites and projects but that the contractor provides and adheres to the appropriate safety management plans. And, of course, all of this will be recorded. Contractor management services can prove a contractor’s comprehension and agreement to comply with your criteria.
3. Managing Online Inductions
A great way to introduce contractor compliance policies and regulations is to use online inductions. A contractor management system can put these inductions in place, ensuring contractors are informed of legal requirements and workplace health and safety regulations. One of the key benefits of online inductions is that they are easy to track. You have documented proof that your contractors have completed their general and site or project-specific inductions.
4. Easily Accessible Central Repository of Contractor Data
If you currently work with various filing systems and spreadsheets across multiple offices and sites, your contractor data may not be easy to navigate. By engaging a contractor management specialist, you can create a central repository for your data. And, let’s not forget how much data we’re talking about. When you work with contractors, you need to collect insurance information, qualifications, security checks, safe systems of work, licenses, certificates and more. With a contractor management system, you can check your contractors at a glance, knowing immediately where the gaps in their compliance are.
5. Keep Your Documents Up to Date
Contractor compliance is more than just the initial prequalification process before the contracts begin; it is an ongoing process. Many things can change during the course of a project; documents can come up for renewal, and regulations can evolve. By having an automated system that can send notifications of renewals and a specialist support team working with contractors to keep them on top of expired information and changing compliance requirements, you give yourself an advantage in staying ahead of your compliance challenges.
The Power of a Good Contractor Management System
A good contract management system will ensure that your contractors meet the compliance requirements of your organisation as efficiently and consistently as possible. This means that you can deliver on business and operational objectives while reducing the overall risk exposure to the organisation. By engaging an externally managed contractor management solution, you will have a consistent method of evaluating contractor compliance levels and an established process for auditing them once they’re in place. With contractor compliance management, you can keep workers safe, reduce business risk and save valuable time, money and resources.
For over a decade, Conserve has helped organisations overcome contractor management challenges. We can help you develop a contractor management service that will be not only effective but will make your organisation safer, while minimising your overall risk. Request a demo now or visit the Conserve page for more great content.
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