Page 58 - Occupational Health & Safety, October 2018

CONTRACTOR MANAGEMENT
The Partnership Imperative:
Working Together to Improve Contractor Safety Compliance
Rather than taking a punitive approach, you can make safety compliance a win-win for everyone involved.
BY MARCUS PETTUS
You’ve probably heard the saying, “No man is an island.” When it comes to contractor safety compliance, the saying should be, “No company is an island.”
Leading companies recognize that cultivating an internal safety culture is critical to the long-term success of the business. Many of these proactive busi- nesses are also working to extend that culture across their contractor workforce, too.
These companies have recognized the value of im- plementing a contractor safety compliance program that helps prevent worker injuries, protect the com- pany’s reputation, minimize operational disruption, support compliance with government regulations, and avoid potential fines and unnecessary loss.
To say that lax safety compliance among your contractors invites trouble is an understatement. Just look to the example of Tesla, which is currently un- der investigation by the state of California for mul- tiple worker injuries on its automobile assembly line. While Telsa has tried to distance itself by arguing that a subcontractor is responsible, it’s Tesla’s brand and reputation that are suffering due to the bad press, not the contractor’s. Or the impact to Ford, which had to halt production of its best-selling F-150 truck for two weeks in May when one of its parts suppliers, which had a history of safety violations, suffered an explo- sion that injured two workers and also took its plant offline. Ford has stated it expects the temporary halt in F-150 production resulting from its contractor’s safety
incident to have an adverse effect on its second quar- ter earnings.
These examples abound, highlighting the criti- cal importance of establishing a contractor safety program that ensures your safety standards are well- defined and consistently applied across all your con- tractors through a prequalification and monitoring process that evaluates contractor compliance with OSHA and company-specific safety requirements.
The Business Case for Partnership
A formal contractor safety compliance program ben- efits both your company and your contractors in a number of ways. First, it ensures all of your contrac- tors clearly understand your particular standards and expectations when it comes to safety. Next, it demon- strates your desire to partner with the contractor to support safe workplaces.
It may be simpler to run a program that takes the tone of “submit your program information and if it’s not good enough we won’t do business with you.” How- ever, such a program doesn’t help your company attract contractors as long-term business partners and doesn’t help your contractors know where they’re going wrong, so they can correct any safety issues. It also doesn’t ac- knowledge the business reality that sometimes, due to the specialized nature of the work performed or its lo- cation, your contractor options are extremely limited, making it difficult to draw such a hard line.
Rather than taking a punitive approach, you can make safety compliance a win-win for everyone in- volved. To do this, your company will need to pro- vide its contractors with a framework to measure their program’s performance, and tools and resources for program improvement should any safety gaps be identified. This helps your company build more prof- itable, mutually-beneficial partnerships with your contractors.
Whether your company chooses to manage your contractor safety compliance program in-house or with the help of a third-party vendor, it pays off when your business takes a partnership approach to main- taining safety on your work sites.
Building a Compliance Partnership
You know that ideally a contractor safety compli- ance program helps your company streamline contractor safety prequalification processes, accel-
54 Occupational Health & Safety | OCTOBER 2018
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