The pharmaceutical industry is worth over $1 trillion and employs over 5 million people globally. The nature of the work in the pharmaceutical industry means that large volumes of contractors are employed. Many companies rely more heavily on contracted workers than they do on direct employees. In some masnufacturing plants, 100% of people on site could be highly skilled, long-term contractors. Additionally, the pharmaceutical industry employs many shorter term contractors who come on site for a particular project or for a shut-down, turnaround or outage. But what type of information should be included in an orientation checklist for a worker in the pharmaceutical industry.
Having so many different types of workers on site means that a number of different forms of onboarding and orientation scenarios need to be planned out. This can be a challenge using old-fashioned methods of contractor management, which are not agile enough to meet the changing needs of a company. Pharmaceutical companies may employ a number of different types of contractors, including:
- Long-term employees, who are often brought through a robust onboarding process which starts from recruitment and continues throughout their career development in the company.
- Short-term contractors (less than three months on site) are usually given an overview of the company safety rules and policies, as well as some awareness training on site-specific hazards.
- Medium term contractors (3 months – 1 year+) tend to start with the same process as short-term contractors, but may also receive some information on the company culture and values. Any changes on site will prompt further training for these contractors.
Orientations are not solely made up of training. Documents can also be verified and approved, including, paperwork such as training records, method statements, permits to work and risk assessments. The various components of an orientation process mean that it can take up two to three hours to complete, all before the contractor begins work.
Pharmaceutical Contractor Orientation Checklist
The pharmaceutical industry presents some hazards which exist across all industries and some which are industry specific. Each site is different so risk assessments need to be conducted that inform contractor orientations as to how to respond to dangers. Companies within the pharmaceutical industry often have strong brands which they wish to portray and an orientation is a great place to make sure everyone is one the same page from day one, even contractors! Here is an orientation checklist with some of the main topics to cover for workers in the pharmaceutical industry:
- About Us: This section should be used to educate a new worker about the company culture and how the new employee is expected to fit within that culture. A company culture is vital to any project success so if this is emphasized early on in an orientation, you can ensure that a worker is good fit.
- Your Responsibilities: An company has a certain level of responsibility to its workers, either full time employees or contractors. Under Occupational Safety and Health law (OSH), employers have a responsibility to provide a safe workplace. This includes providing PPE, safety training specific to pharma labs and ensuring workers are using the appropriate tools for the job, and that this equipment is well maintained.
- Jobsite Procedures: Workers should be made aware of the on-site procedures that keep safety standards high. These include: Entry / exit procedures, worksite organisation and practice, designated hazardous areas or restricted areas, fire protection, location of washrooms, and the maintenance of tools, machinery and equipment.
- Specific work practices: Training can include generic information that applies across a number of sites, as well as job and site-specific content. Information specific to a site and a worker’s role includes: Workplace hazardous substances and dangerous goods, working in confined spaces, lockout/tag out, housekeeping, material handling, and manual handling, working at heights, mobile plant, electricity / electrocution, Slips, trips & falls, hazardous substances and chemical awareness.5. Conduct
Companies expect a certain level of conduct among its workforce. A company’s culture is closely linked to its success and behavior that could potentially harm it should not be tolerated. Unacceptable behavior includes: Alcohol and substance misuse, smoking on-site, harassment, sexual harassment, racial harassment, other forms of harassment, violence in the workplace, workplace stress, noise, and offensive language.6. Emergency, incident and injury procedures
Safety is not just about preventing accidents, it’s also about having procedures in place should an accident happen so that harm is minimized to the greatest possible extent. This procedure can include: Emergency contacts and information, evacuation routes, hazard communication, reporting accidents, hazards, fire prevention, incidents, injuries and near misses, location of emergency eyewash stations, and first aid.7. Work Permits
Workers require the proper documentation to complete specific, ‘higher-risk’ tasks on site, e.g. working at height, hot works, confined space work etc. An employer is responsible for ensuring that these permits are in order. An online contractor management system can make this process much easier by having an easily searchable database rather than a paper based method.8. Other
This Depends on the type of work being carried out. Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) may also be required as an orientation topic, as well as Good Distribution Practice (GDP). It is also becoming more popular for companies to include their environmental procedures in their training so include it in your orientation checklist.
Maintaining Pharmaceutical Contractor Orientations
It’s important to recognize that a one-off orientation should not be the sum total of a pharmaceutical company’s workforce compliance efforts. It is important to keep track of your worker’s documents because a training record – such as SafePass, CSCS or OSHA qualification – may go out of date in the meantime. Keeping track of documents is a key part of an orientation checklist. After an orientation is complete, documents are tracked as they expire and training should be refreshed within 12 months, depending on the level of risk. To be compliant, all of these must be updated for a contractor to continue on-site. This can be done manually, or through an online contractor management system.
Advantages of an Online Contractor Management System
Orientations were traditionally done using paper spreadsheets which had several disadvantages including high costs, inefficiency and workers slipping through the cracks. The pharmaceutical industry is further advanced in how it conducts its orientations than many other contractor-heavy industries and Contractor management systems are commonplace. There is good reasons for this because conducting your orientations online is a cost and time effective option that allows workers to start work the moment they arrive on-site. Workers receive generic and site-specific training and have higher retention when they do their training online, thanks to the flexible multimedia format.
