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When it comes to safety, your contracting companies, as well as your clients and shareholders, expect more from you than the bare minimum. Simply having an induction program in place isn’t enough. You need to be able to demonstrate its effectiveness through measurable results.
The beginning of your working relationship with any contractor usually begins with a safety induction. This is the single best place to establish your organisation’s approach and attitude to safety. This opportunity, however, is often overlooked by many employers who will simply hand contractors a booklet or sit them in front of a DVD and have them sign a piece of paper. Almost any contractor will attest to this!
Unfortunately, while you may be fulfilling legal obligations, there are two potentially dangerous implications. First, there is no guarantee that the inductee has understood or retained the information and second, your company will have demonstrated that there is little value placed on safety. This can then reflect on the contractor’s attitude to safety – at least while they are working on your site!
What makes an effective contractor induction?
A strong contractor induction program should not only engage inductees in an interactive learning process, it should enable you to create quantifiable improvements in safety related statistics.
An effective contractor induction program should be able to:
- Create and adapt course content quickly and easily, in order to keep up with changes.
- Induct contractors before they arrive on-site.
- Ensure that inductees actually understand the content presented to them.
- Provide control and consistency across multiple sites and divisions from a single location.
- Create a consistent, company-wide message that communicates your dedication to safety.
- Automatically collect and report all course and inductee related data.
When your contractors need to actually understand the course content in order to effectively complete and pass their induction, you’re already taking real steps towards building a culture of safety.
Online inductions offer the solution!
While some organisation go to the trouble of building, installing and hosting their own in-house interactive induction program – a third-party provider is the easiest way to go. A good online contractor induction company will provide you with:
- Fully hosted software
- The ability to induct contractors before they arrive on site
- A failsafe questioning system that ensures contractors understand the content as they conduct the course
- The ability to change content immediately
- Automated recording of all inductee information and induction results
The solutions are out there, so look for them and don’t compromise on any of the above listed features. Your contractor induction program deserves to be both functional and effective.
Frank Templeton is Owner and Managing Director of the John Temple Group, an Adelaide, South Australia based company providing solutions and advice regarding employee/contractor induction, risk assessment, contractor management and security access.
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