Modern manufacturing companies rely on the expertise of contractor organizations to strengthen their in-house workforce. They gain access to varied skill-sets which can help boost their business when required.

On top of this, in high- and medium risk environments, plenty of jobs require specific and applied knowledge which likely comes at a high cost for the organization. For companies to remain profitable while protecting their reputation, it makes sense to outsource the job to a contractor who is specialized in that line of work and training for the job.

What’s the trouble?

Despite the current need for outsourced expertise, and many companies relying on said expertise, there are a few hitches in the cable that have not yet been ironed out.

The challenge lies in managing and measuring the safety and the performance of contractors, as these workers often report to separate lines of management. This leaves the contracting company with a poor view on operational KPIs and a lack of overview related to safe handling and the training status of these third-party employees. And this to say nothing of certifications, bad communication, lack of qualification, and more.

The situation highlights the complexity of contractor management, and the difficulty it poses for setting up the processes required to safeguard both the contracting company and contractor in all aspects of the work performed.

To the rescue?

To help alleviate the pressure, management systems and legislative guidelines have been published and/or updated to reflect modern work scenarios. The ISO 45001 standard, for example, has introduced an approach to managing contractors in a safe and practical manner, integrated into companies’ central OHSAS management systems. Specialized offshoots started appearing in an increased fashion as well from the 1990s onward, such as VCA in the Netherlands and Belgium, and VCI in Germany, which are still being updated.

But this only goes part of the way to lighten the pain points when it comes to managing contractors. The new ISO standard and the other checklists propose several guidelines which contracting – and contractor companies must put into action if they want to be compliant with the standard and be certified.

In other words, implementing the proposed management processes is another thing entirely, since it’s known to generate more paperwork and plenty more overhead (a criticism that’s been leveled against the standards before).

A practical solution

What can be done to lighten the administrative load and improve efficiency? One possible answer lies in utilizing a dedicated software tool to support and automate these procedures.

There are many benefits to adopting a software solution to qualify your contractors and ensure they are compliant with regulations. The software seriously reduces the hassle of arduous paperwork, enabling users to focus more on the work at hand. Here are some basal figures:

• Spend 40% less time on administrative follow-up;
• Reduce outdated documents by 95%;
• Consistent (pre-)qualification flows that decrease time spent by 70%;
• Implement a 100% paperless process to ensure a clean audit trail.

All information for both the contracting company and contractor becomes accessible on a central platform that keeps track of changes and automates update requests for both parties. This effectively takes part of the administrative overhead ISO standards can cause out of the equation.

A link in the chain

It can be beneficial for the contractor to become an integral part of the organization, something of a long term partner. This enables companies to gain a full overview of KPIs, safety measures, training statuses, and more. Of course, the contractor does not belong to the legal entity of the contracting company and is not technically an employee. So how can this be handled?

This is where the additional advantages come to light that go beyond a single software product to help support contractor management procedures. TenForce Contractor Management, for example, is part of an integrated software package, in which it’s possible to connect the contractor management processes to other procedures already present in the software, and thereby also the company itself.

• The relationship can be managed via a software application that enables dynamic qualification and processing without adding the contractor to the employee list but treats them as such in other respects.
• It is possible to link contractors up to a Permit-to-work request by including them in the PtW process from the central employee database—or even better, by automatically associating them. This is one of the advantages of the modular approach to software.
• Safety training can also be smartly tracked with dedicated software that enables you to take actions based on performance or check whether certification has been obtained before selecting (out-sourced) personnel for a job.

In this way it becomes possible to gain insight into performance, safety, and the status of training on a central platform that includes all contractor information from the get-go. Where paper-based methods fail, people often go for different software solutions to close the gap. The next step is to find an integrated software that enables you to manage the complexity of reality in a comprehensive manner.