Contractor HSE Management – Best Practices

Over the past 30 years, in all countries and all industries, companies have increasingly relied on services provided by contractor organizations. The ratio of contractors’ working hours to company employees’ working hours has increased manifold.

As a result, contractors and subcontractors have become increasingly involved in hazardous operations, which, in its turn, has led to an increase in accident rate in contractor organizations and in client companies’ reputational and financial costs. 

A client company is responsible for providing and maintaining safety on a job site. However, contractors, let alone multiple ‘layers’ of subcontractors, often may not have the same level of safety culture as the client company has.

The problem is not so much whether a client company should assume responsibility for its contractors’ health and safety, it is HOW a client company should ensure contractors’ and subcontractors’ compliance with its safety requirements. 

What Will I Learn?

The course helps acquire practical skills in establishing contractor health and safety management processes in line with best practices. Participants of the course will learn how to:

• Allocate key roles and responsibilities for contractor health and safety management within a client company;

• Apply an established contractor selection strategy, implement an effective pre-qualification selection procedure based on the risks involved in the job and a contractor’s ability to control the risks;

• Select qualified contractors through a competitive selection process based on potential contractors’ documentation and on-site audits;

• Develop effective health and safety terms and conditions as part of agreements made with contractors;

• Coordinate contractors’ operations;

• Develop a program of monitoring contractors’ health and safety performance and implement a system of motivation and consequence management – to ensure contractors’ continuous improvement;

• Identify barriers that might hinder successful implementation of contractor health and safety management processes and ways of overcoming them;

• Use best practices to improve contractor safety management including ISO 45001 requirements and others.

Who Is This Course For?

The course is intended for project leaders, supervisors and contracted managers, managers and specialists of HSE departments, managers and specialists of procurement departments who have to raise their awareness of strategies and tactics for improving contractor health and safety management. 

What Is The Course Program?

The course consists of the following modules: ​

• The significance and necessity of contractor HSE management:

  • ​Key requirements for contractor HSE management included in international and corporate standards;

  • Benefits of contractor HSE management.

• Allocation of responsibilities for contractor HSE management in a client company. Key roles and responsibilities.

• Contractor HSE management system:

  • Pre-qualification process;

  • Working out contract terms and conditions – safety requirements;

  • Selecting a contractor – assessment criteria in line with safety requirements, awarding a contract;

  • Issuing the contractor a permit-to-work;

  • Coordinating the contractor’s work and monitoring safety of the operations;

  • Evaluating the contractor’s work upon contract completion to assess performance and collect lessons learned.

• Barriers to implementation of contractor HSE management processes and ways to overcome them.

The course includes practical tasks in selecting contractors based on real-world business cases.The course program may be adapted to a client company’s corporate standards and procedures.

How Long Is The Course And What Is The Format?

16 hours (The program may be reduced to 8 hours based on topics selected by a client.)Courses are provided for corporate groups on dates convenient for a client as

• corporate face-to-face courses at any location in Canada or the USA on a company’s premises OR

• corporate webinar courses designed as sets of 2, 3 or 4 webinars – in ZOOM for Business or MS Teams – as requested by a client.

Is It Practical? Is It Fun?

The course is interactive, and it is based on the interaction between an instructor and participants; it includes a variety of training formats: mini-lectures, discussions, practical exercises in small groups, analysis of business cases, individual self-assessment, watching video materials – to ensure understanding of the materials and reinforce the learning process.

An instructor uses a lot of examples from international best practices in contractor HSE management. Participants will be able to put the knowledge and skills acquired during the course to practice immediately. 

Certificate

​Upon successful completion of the course, participants will be issued a certificate of completion.