Contractor Safety Management Tools – PDF Downloads
The tools below have been developed to assist organisations comply with key safety legislative requirements when it comes to engaging contractors. They should not be considered a substitute for a proper contractor safety management system. The tools include the following:
Risk Assessment Form
Every organisation needs a risk assessment template that enables workers to formally record and assess hazards in an organized manner. This can be used for conducting formal risk assessments e.g., a monthly site safety walk. This template should have a risk matrix to enable staff to assess risk level and insert recommended controls. To save time, some choose to record hazards directly into a risk register (see below), however a formal risk assessment template remains a useful tool.
Risk register
Identifying and controlling hazards is the central function of any safety system, therefore a risk register is a critical tool. This should be hosted in a central location such as One Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox or other shared folder system. This will enable management and staff to access and populate as required. Generally, risk registers are used to list hazards and allocate responsibility for fixing them if management and staff are unable to fix themselves e.g., a broken weld on a forklift truck.
Job Safety Analysis (JSA)
To be completed by the contractor and checked by the person engaging the contractor before work commences. This ensures that the contractor has identified any hazards and implemented controls to minimise risk.
Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS)
This is mandatory in some states and must be completed by contractors engaged in construction work and is often a substitute for a JSA. The person engaging the contractor must check the SWMS has been completed properly and the contractor has identified any hazards and implemented controls to minimise risk to the best of their knowledge.
Contractor management procedure
It is good practice to document the way your organisation engages contractors and the process it uses to ensure they work safely. This can be used to train staff in your contractor management requirements so they know what to do when selecting contractors and what to do when contractors arrive on site to perform work.
Contractor induction checklist
This is a critical step in the contractor management process. All contractors should be inducted into the safety requirements of your site. If there is an incident you must be able to prove that you’ve explained the processes, including emergency management such as first aid, evacuation processes etc. In addition, if there are any site specific hazards for example, confined space areas or places where falls from heights could occur, you must explain this to the contractor and ensure they have understood.
Working from home checklist
This provides some of the critical safety checks team members should perform on their home work stations to assure team leaders they understand their obligations and have performed a self assessment.
Work instruction template
This is a great template for creating step by step instructions on how to perform a task such as operating a machine. It can be also be used as a competency assessment to verify that you have trained the staff member which is a legal requirement.
How to use these tools
Ideally, all these tools should be tailored to meet the needs of your organisation. They should be considered fundamental and mandatory when it comes to contractor management and if there is an incident, you must be able to provide evidence that these requirements have been met. In our experience, if you have a high number of contractors e.g. more than 10 contractors working on site on any given month, then paper based filing systems become inaccurate and difficult to audit, over time. You will need a structured filing system to ensure you know where every JSA and every induction is filed. This record keeping process becomes a fundamental part of your safety management system.
