Key takeaways: Over the past 20 years, the U.S has seen a steady decline in recordable incident rates. However, according to reports from industry groups such as DEKRA and the Campbell Institute, Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIFs) have declined at a significantly slower rate. By leveraging technology and implementing a contractor management system, Hiring Clients can bolster their contractor management efforts and effectively communicate their health and safety requirements to safeguard workers on job sites. In this article read more about:
- Evaluating Current Processes
- The Value of a Contractor Management System
- Using Technology to Mitigate Risk
- How ISN can Help
Over the past 20 years, the U.S has seen a steady decline in recordable incident rates. However, according to reports from industry groups such as DEKRA and the Campbell Institute, Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIFs) have declined at a significantly slower rate.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data shows that in the United States there were 5,250 worker fatalities and 2.8 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported by private industry employers in 2018. While workplace injury and illness statistics were unchanged from 2017 at 2.8 cases per 100 workers, fatalities increased by 2% year over year.
European Union statistics show a similar trend. Eurostat documented 3,552 fatal accidents at work in the European Union during 2017, a 1% year over year decrease, and 3.3 million non-fatal accidents, which grew by 0.1%.
Well-developed health and safety programs that are properly implemented are necessary to minimize workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities across myriad job tasks and environments. Such programs ensure that both employees and contractors are aware of the hazards associated with the work they are performing as well as understand how to perform their job safely.
In a recent survey of more than 200 ISN Hiring Clients in capital-intensive industries, 41% expected outsourcing of work to increase over the next 1-2 years. With outsourcing comes a need for a robust contractor management system to help ensure organizations manage contractor safety and mitigate the potential risks for safe and productive operations.
When asked in our survey about the challenges that prevented companies from reaching their contractor management goals, two key trends were identified:
- A shortage of skilled and competent employees to oversee contractor management.
- Insufficient subcontractor oversight by prime contractors.
By leveraging technology and implementing a contractor management system, Hiring Clients can bolster their contractor management efforts and effectively communicate their health and safety requirements to safeguard workers on job sites.
Evaluate Current Processes
A contractor management system helps centralize critical information. What should you track, and how much time is required to bring this information together? Evaluate your current contractor and subcontractor management processes and ask yourself the following questions:
- What is our risk exposure?
- Do we have a process for checking company diligence (financial, insurance, cyber, safety programs, etc)
- Are we splitting up frequency and risk categories to focus on the most safety critical contractor groups?
- How are we applying safety diligence tracking?
- Are carrying out audits / inspections and tracking incidents?
- Are we checking completed risk assessments / safe systems of work (SSOW) and ensuring they conform with our own expectations?
- Do we have a system to centralize permits to work?
- Are we ensuring appropriate training is in place for our contractor base?
- Do we know what work is being subcontracted by the contractor?
- Do we know which individuals are on site at any given time?
These considerations allow an organization to identify and highlight what aligns to its safety culture and what may need to be addressed. The challenge here is resources. Who and how much time is needed to centralize and verify this information to identify vital trends and gaps with regard to identifying and addressing risk?
The Value of a Contractor Management System
A best-in-class contractor management system, such as ISNetworld, can allow contractors and subcontractors to import required data into one source. This can dramatically reduce time and resources from a Hiring Client’s organization and hold contractor organizations accountable for their safety performance, training, insurance and other critical requirements to work on the job site.
Reducing TRIR
The use of an effective contractor management system has great potential to drive incident rates down over time. ISN Hiring Clients are reaping the benefits of this trend. For example, a six-year analysis of U.S. based ISN contractors showed an effective contractor management program helped decrease incident rates. The increased focus on leading indicators, such as pre-job risk assessments, near-miss reporting and sharing lessons learned from incidents, has also contributed in lowering incident rates. Download a copy of the Orange Book 2019 for more information on this analysis.
Consider Including “Low-Risk” Contractors
Many Hiring Clients' contractor management programs begin with a focus on their high- and medium-risk contractors. However, in more recent years there has been a shift in Hiring Clients expanding the scope to include a wider range of contractors and suppliers as new risks emerge.
In 2019, one ISN Hiring Client evaluated three years of on-site incidents and fatalities and found most were from low-risk contractors. ISN and the Hiring Client then worked together to implement low-risk contractors into ISNetworld, onboarding more than 2,000 of them. The company’s expansion to include those initially deemed “low-risk” increased visibility into contractors' safety performance and allowed them to meet their key metric goals. Download a copy of the Orange Book 2020 for more information on this analysis.
Using Technology to Mitigate Risk
In the past few years there has been a rise in new reporting technologies to aid in obtaining a greater picture of health and safety diligence. What are these systems and how effective are they?
Virtual Learning
Training is a critical key in supporting contractor safety and compliance to ensure familiarity with tools and worksite processes and procedures. The COVID-19 pandemic this year has created an even greater need for virtual learning opportunities to ensure compliance with regulations. ISN’s Learning Management System (LMS), for example, provides complimentary, high-quality, computer-based training materials from third-party providers for contractor customers to satisfy Hiring Client requirements.
Digital Check-In
To manage security, accountability and competency risks, industries have increased the use of card scanning systems when coming on job sites. This serves many purposes, such as controlling exactly who can come on site by linking card scanning technology to employee-level requirements and using mobile scanning devices at key points-of-entry. Admission can be made dependent upon the completion of required training and satisfactory qualifications. Absent digital technology, this would require multiple security and reception personnel.
ISN offshore Hiring Clients use ISNetworld to ensure employee-level compliance against the requirements set forth by their organizations. Contractors can then provide confirmation upon arrival and prior to entering the jobsite via a handheld device versus a piece of paper.
In the case of an emergency, the technology can easily pull a list of all employees and contractors on site. "The Check In / Check Out tool is a crucial component in us having visibility into who is on our sites at any given time,” said Scott Long, contractor safety manager at Kinder Morgan. “We are able to pull a report when there is no time to spare, showing the true value and reliability of the tool in regard to the safety and security of our employees and contractors.”
Audit Systems
Technology will never fully remove the need for inspections / audits and checklists; it can, however, significantly reduce paperwork. This can be done by having audit systems built into phones that allow pictures to be taken and directly added to a report or incident investigation.
And as audits vary from site to site, Hiring Clients are seeing the need to ensure that these well-written programs are actually reaching their intended audience, the field worker. Online surveys and assessments as well as interviews with a contracting company’s management team can give a more clear picture as to the level of implementation and employee understanding of a company’s HSE program. ISN’s RAVS Plus assessment program is designed to help bridge the gap between RAVS desktop reviews and potential on-site audits or inspections by Hiring Clients.
To date, more than 185 ISN subscribed Hiring Clients are active in the RAVS Plus program. The ISN RAVS Plus team has conducted more than 4,900 interviews with contractor customers and reviewed more than 867,700 training and supporting documents.
Let ISN Help
There is change on the horizon. With the landscape for capital-intensive industries evolving, a heavy reliance on contractors is becoming the new normal. It is more critical than ever to ensure the health, safety, environmental, and quality compliance of your suppliers and contractors with an effective contractor management system.
ISN’s global platform with data-driven products and services helps companies manage risk and strengthen relationships. Our goal is to bring together our network of more than 650 Hiring Clients and 75,000 active contractors to promote continual improvement in contractor management and strive for a safe work environment for everyone.
If you are a current ISN Hiring Client subscriber, contact your account representative about the latest ISNetworld functionality and tool releases to support the continual improvement of your contractor management program.
If you are a Hiring Client interested in learning more about ISN’s contractor management system to help you reach your contractor management goals, request a demo of ISNetworld.