Landscapers, the water delivery, the fleet of truck drivers, pest control, the catering company…Contractors’ services are vital to businesses’ day-to-day operations. Yet the constant flow of new people on a company's premises introduces inherent risks. The security challenges surrounding contractor compliance is one any business should take very, very seriously.
Contractors are some of the most frequent visitors to business premises. They include anyone who sets foot on a facility to conduct business but is not a direct employee of the company. Compliance for contractors was set in place to ensure they are qualified to perform their duties and pose no threat to business operations.
With ever-increasing and changing regulatory and compliance requirements - particularly prevalent in highly regulated industries – the ability to efficiently verify contractor credentials and track their presence on-site is a key facet of any organization’s security infrastructure.
There are two components to contractor compliance. The first revolves around corporate compliance which are requirements set out by the contracted organization. This can include a Clearance Certificate, Liability Insurance Certificate, Health and Safety Policy acknowledgement, Prevention of Workplace Violence and Harassment and PPE procedures.
The second is employee qualifications required for operating in their designated fields. These employee qualifications might include a Working at Heights Certificate, driver’s license, drug testing, and background checks. An electrical services employee additionally requires Bucket Rescue and Evacuation Training as well as First Aid/CPR certification.
Whether granting access to an electrician in event of a sudden power outage or to those regular contractors appointed for day-to-day waste disposal, non-adherence to any one requirement can lead to multi-million dollar lawsuits and even result in fatal workplace incidents.
Even small businesses have massive compliance requirements
Let’s consider contractor compliance requirements of a small food processing company.
The company’s operations are spread over nine locations with around 30 employees per site. They rely on around 1,000 contractors annually. This includes logistical support to transport their goods, pest control, security, maintenance, lawn care services – the list goes on. Each contractor has several employees who might sub-contract work at certain times.
There are several thousand contracted individuals who require several thousand more compliance records. Organizations, as well as contractor hiring companies, need to ensure that certificate renewal dates are met, regular qualification updates take place and that these documents are submitted and available to the relevant stakeholders in a timely manner.
The complexity of managing this enormous amount of documentation is further escalated by the necessity to check records every time a contractor comes onto a site. Finally, in case of an audit, all relevant records should be available to regulatory authorities during a spot-check.
Achieving a 100% compliance can seem like an impossible task.
What stands in the way of being 100% compliant?
One of the issues in attaining 100% compliance is relying on manual processes. Spreadsheets, email attachments and endless folders of paper documents reside in different siloed systems and require manual updates to ensure contractors are and remain qualified and compliant. Consolidating this data across multiple sites and departments have been near impossible to achieve.
These inefficiencies were further exasperated by procurement processes spread across health and safety, human resources and operations departments. Clearing contractors for work essentially came down to trusting that the contractor and hiring company keep their records up to date.
Most organizations require an all-encompassing strategy that fits within their budget and resources to ensure that records are current and re-qualification happens when contractors fall out of compliance.
Maintaining 100% compliance levels boils down to efficiency in collecting and managing contractor records.
Centralizing compliance records in a cloud-based platform
Contractor Compliance is a SaaS platform where key tasks in the compliance pipeline are automated from a central database where corporate and employee compliance records are uploaded, managed and re-qualified.
Contractor hiring companies list their contractors and set up project-specific requirements for qualifications. Contractors can upload necessary documents to their profiles which are approved by the relevant project administrators.
The platform provides a history of certificate uploads, additional versions and approvals or rejections, providing an up-to-date audit trail. Automated alerts notify hiring organizations and contractors prior to renewal and re-qualification dates.
Contractor Compliance provides a seamless avenue for a contractor roster to be created, maintained and enforced. Contractor management offered by the platform ensures the safest possible conditions for bringing contractors on site.
Understanding contractor compliance challenges that many of Sign In Enterprise customers experience as part of the Visitor Management ecosystem, it was important to provide a seamless solution that integrates with the Sign In Enterprise platform. Forming a partnership with Contractor Compliance enabled contractor verification and certification management aligned and connected to the visitor management process.
What is contractor compliance?
Collect, manage and re-qualify third-party contractor documents with intuitive cloud-based software that is free to use for hiring organizations.
Automate key administrative processes to ensure compliance, minimize risk and put time back into your day. Contractor compliance replicates your existing processes so there is virtually no learning curve.
The perfect solution for highly regulated industries.
All contractors that set foot on-premises will be compliant
For companies using Sign In Enterprise’s VMS across their sites, having the assurance that contractors are qualified and compliant is now part of a seamless and safe visitor experience:
Check-in: Contractors sign in or scan their IDs in accordance with the company’s Self-Check-In or Assisted-Check-In modules at security desks. While hosts are instantaneously notified of their arrival, the Contractor Compliance integration runs the visitor’s credentials against their database.
Notifications: If any records are missing, out of date or up for renewal, an email notification is triggered. The communication lists all details of infractions. Permissions on Contractor Compliance can be configured for this information to be sent to all appropriate parties.
Updates: Any outstanding documentation can be uploaded at the point of entry and immediately approved by administrators should the contractor have it available.
Real-time view: As with all visitors who have signed in with the Sign In Enterprise VMS and checked against watchlists, hosts are offered a real-time view of all contractors on locations across all sites. Having consolidated records of contractor visitations help to ensure that contractors are on site for the duration their contracts stipulate.
Watchlists: By adding Contractor Compliance to our list of verified watchlists, which includes Visual Compliance, organizations are protected from the liability that could ensue from bringing non-compliant contractors onto premises. Human error and general inefficiencies are subverted while organizations maintain the highest level of safety and security, all while being audit-ready and complaint in real-time.
The service manages access for compliant contractors, identifies non-compliant ones and automatically maintains these watchlists. The purpose of these precautionary measures are not to catch contractors out, but to engage them to become responsible, valuable and sought after providers. By offering ongoing opportunities to improve their abilities and earn additional skills, Sign In Enterprise supports Contractor Compliance's long-term roadmap to promote loyalty and increase work satisfaction.