There’s a general consensus held by high-ranking organizational leaders that poor safety results are a direct result of ineffective management. Furthermore, a study by the University of Georgia found that if a company has sufficient management in place accidents can be reduced by 38%. The study also said that although occupations differ in terms of safety hazards, increasingly there’s evidence to suggest that management and organizational factors “also play a critical role,” in subcontractor safety according to Dave DeJoy, a Professor at the University of Georgia and one of the authors of the study. According to another study by E. Kevin Kellowa poor management could also “isolate individuals” and increase stress levels due to a lack of strong leadership skills. It’s this lack in skills that could also put your subcontractor safety on the line. Therefore, does poor subcontractor safety indicate weak management? Let’s find out.
The Risk of Complacency
Many organizations may already have an effective health and safety system in place, which is managed correctly. Frequently, however, management become complacent about adhering to or implementing these systems. According to EHS Today, having effective “processes in place” is an important factor for the reduction of accidents and fatalities but “over time their effectiveness can be eroded by complacency and lack of organizational commitment.” According to the piece, this is usually the result of a reduction in injuries or fatalities, which results in key “safety processes” getting skipped and important aspects of training simply getting ignored which “can result in a disaster.” To put this into perspective, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 797 contractor workers were killed within construction in 2014, compared to 749 for the previous year. In fact, workers who were contracted at the time of their fatal injury accounted for 17% of all fatal cases in 2014, according to BLS.
Why Subcontractor Safety is Important
Those numbers are indicative of a spike and should play a major factor in subcontractor safety becoming a major priority for companies. This process should begin by developing a safety culture within your organization so that contractor safety is guaranteed. According to EHS Today , creating “sustainable safety performance” requires more than an “adherence to a checklist” it also requires a commitment by the management to develop a company-wide “commitment to safety.” Although organizational leadership is an important component of this, according to the piece, making an “ongoing pursuit of safe operations” should be a core value within every company. This process, as the piece rightly says, will also include a system of “establishing expectations” that are both widely understood “accepted and practiced.”
Creating a safety culture isn’t always an easy process, with bureaucracy and a lack of communication often cited as reasons for shortfalls in this department. However, change can only come from the top, as is indicative within the American mining industry. Recently the CEO of Anglo American mining firm, Cynthia Carroll, said that “a strong safety performance translates into a strong business performance.” In her piece in Harvard Business Review she speaks about the fact that the company had seen a steady increase in casualties prior to her arrival at the firm- some 200 by her calculations- and therefore needed a “clear vision, guiding values, and, above all, a safe working environment for its employees.” She immediately set about creating a safety culture within the organization, and even went as far to shut one of the company’s largest plants in Rustenburg, South Africa, which employed more than 30,000 people. According to Cynthia, the decision to shut down the plant and halt production for several weeks was a “turning point for the company.” The closure led to an overhaul of “safety practices in mines across the world” and the replacement of management at the mine which was a “good thing because ensuring that we had the right people in crucial roles was an important step in creating safe working conditions,” she said. Clearly, in this example, management attitudes played a huge factor in contractor safety.
Tips for improving subcontractor safety
According to EHS Today, your first step is to establish “safety rules” and a process where you can effectively communicate expectations to your contractors, which will help improve safety on construction projects and increases productivity in the process. Furthermore, the head of Safety Resources for DuPont, Robert Krywicki, gave a number of tips on improving contractor safety.
1) Select Safe Contractors
According to Krywicki, you should closely scrutinize your contractors and even look at their past safety history on projects. You can avail of OSHA’s citations list to get a better understanding of if the contractor you have hired has a bad safety reputation.
2) State Your Safety Expectations
Your safety expectations should be stated at the outset of a project, this will ensure that you are on the same level as your contractor. You could apply this through your terms and conditions.
4) Safety First
As we spoke about earlier, safety needs to be consistent and should be the main focus of all of your training. There’s the fear, according to Krywicki, that contractors could be excellent on day one then fall into a complacent attitude concerning safety. Try to avoid this at all costs.
5) Work Closely Regarding Safety
Open communication is obviously key for contractor safety. Krywicki recommends communicating openly with your contractors regarding safety on a regular basis. In fact, according to a separate piece by EHS Today, keeping your contractors safe is all about building trust and having open communication. According to the piece, this is why you should be setting “safety performance expectations for contractors” conducting “documentation and hazards reviews” and “coordinating” effective contractor orientations to run a safe and efficient project.
6) Use GoContractor
GoContractor was built with contractor safety in mind, not only does our platform guarantee efficient contractor management, but it is designed to provide training to all of your workers regardless of their title. GoContractor allows your contractors to register themselves online, upload documentation and get the latest health and safety training. Our dashboard allows you to easily manage your contractors registration and training, allowing you to monitor the flow of workers throughout multiple sites. With safety in mind, you can remind your contractors to take refresher training, ensuring they are fully prepared on day one.
Issues
According to EHS Today, ensuring that contractors and subcontractors utilize an effective health and safety program is one of the “thorniest issues confronting general contractors.” This is why pre-job planning and setting reliable expectations can reduce confusion over a particular project. In order to ensure this doesn’t become a problem and that contractor safety is appropriately supervised by effective management practices, it would be worthwhile to adopt a hazard analysis so that everybody is on the same page regarding subcontractor safety. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an effective hazard analysis can “add value to your business, job, and life” and can ensure that workplace injuries are prevented and all employees are trained properly. However, in order for this process to be effective, management must “demonstrate its commitment to health and safety and follow through to correct any uncontrolled hazards identified.” According to OSHA, this process should include the involvement of your contract workers, a review of your accident history, a job review to ensure you don’t have any mitigating problems with lower-level management, and the rank and a list of jobs with a description of their vulnerability to hazards.
However, none of these steps will be effective unless there is a firm commitment by management that safety will be a core attribute of the company. According to OSHA, effective management is a critical element for the effective implementation of health and safety protocols and subcontractor safety. The critical elements to effective health and safety protocols, according to OSHA, are “management commitment and employee involvement; worksite analysis; hazard prevention and control; training for employees, supervisors, and managers.” Therefore, it’s extremely important that you try to implant safety first into your company culture, and more importantly, your individual managers.
When you’re adding new contractors to your team, bringing them onboard can be a challenge. GoContractor is an online platform which will manage the workload for you, saving you time and reducing risk on-site.
For more information Watch our 60 seconds Video or Take a Free Demo Today
