By Dave Remter (email)
Lead Safety Advisor, Safety Management
Group
This is a series of three
articles by Dave Remter on contractor prequalifications. Click
here to view the first article.
A growing number of
companies are recognizing the benefits of safety
prequalification programs for outside contractors that perform
work on their jobsites. In this series of articles, we’re
examining what prequalification can do, the factors companies
should consider when selecting contractors, and potential
hurdles in the process. This installment looks at the factors
that should be examined when evaluating companies through a
prequalification program.
A contractor prequalification
program can be a very effective tool for ensuring that
everyone working on your site adheres to your company’s safety
standards, and for protecting your hard-earned reputation and
insurance rates.
A well-designed prequalification
program will help you determine whether contractors have an
effective safety program, and whether they’re actually living
up to their own standards. It will also provide an incentive
to encourage contractors that lack safety programs to develop
their own efforts. In this article, we’ll examine some of the
factors that should be included in a prequalification
program.
Practicing what they
preach
When trying to gain your business, any
contractor can tell you that its supervisors and workers value
safety, and that they will only follow safe practices on the
worksite. It’s similar to the way that they promise they’ll
meet all your deadlines and never ask for a change order – and
by itself, about as credible.
So although your prequalification
program should begin by verifying that the contractor has
written safety policies (which is an OSHA requirement, too),
your primary focus should be on determining whether those
policies are actually followed in the course of the
contractor’s operations.
Examining numbers
When we develop a prequalification
process, we’ll typically look back at a contractor’s
recordable incidents going back three years, and how that
translates into incident rates and their EMR (experience
modification ratio). That data provides a quick measurement of
the effectiveness of the contractor’s safety program, and the
deeper you dig, the clearer the picture will
become.
One red flag is worksite fatalities.
Even one fatality on a jobsite is a significant cause for
concern. However, it’s important to investigate the details of
the fatality and ensure that it was work-related before using
it to rule a contractor as ineligible. For example, the
fatality may have been an auto accident as a worker was
leaving the jobsite for lunch, or it may have been a heart
attack that had nothing to do with the work being
performed.
Do programs measure
up?
It’s not enough to ask whether a
contractor has a safety program. Instead, it’s a good idea to
ensure that the safety program is comprehensive and addresses
all of the important aspects. Several of the areas that a
prequalification program may address include:
• Accident Investigation. Check
into past accidents to identify patterns, as well as whether
corrective actions were taken to prevent
reoccurrences.
• Safety Responsibilities. Who
is responsible for ensuring that safety procedures are
followed, and how well do all employees understand
expectations?
• Disciplinary Policy. Are there
clear steps and progressive procedures for safety offenses?
What happens to multiple offenders?
• Drug/Alcohol Policy. Make sure
the contractor has one and that it’s being
enforced.
• Emergency Preparedness. Is the
contractor ready for a disaster? How will they account for
their employees if something happens?
• Hazard Communications.
Is equipment properly labeled? Do employees who are handling
non-routine tasks know the proper safety
procedures?
• New Hire Orientation. What
kind of safety training do new hires receive, and how is it
verified?
• Self-Inspection Policy. What
kind of formal procedures does the contractor use to verify
that safety practices are being followed?
• Personal Protective Equipment.
Does the contractor perform hazard assessments to ensure that
employees have the right equipment?
In addition, if the work the contractor
will perform requires familiarity with a particular area of
safety, the prequalification program should address it. As an
example, if the contractor will be working in confined spaces,
does the company have experience and know how to work safely
in that environment?
Comprehensive equals
effective
A prequalification program this
thorough may seem complex at first, but it quickly becomes a
familiar, regular practice for your company. Most important,
it increases awareness of the importance of safety at your
site and should lead to a reduction in incidents. That will
keep all the workers on your site safer, and ensure that your
insurance premiums stay as low as possible.
Next month’s installment will examine
the potential hurdles companies may encounter when
establishing a prequalification program.