The Three Factors of Contractor Qualification

Before Onboarding New Contractors:

Running an organization is naturally a complicated and multi-faceted ordeal. Within an organization lies numerous processes to ensure smooth-sailing operations such as project management, financial management, and labor requirements. With the seismic shift of operational changes we are experiencing in real time, contractor management is becoming an increasingly important factor of managing a company. Within this lies a plethora of operations all leading towards a shared goal, ensuring safety and compliance. Oftentimes, established hiring organizations have a historical repertoire that has been built upon with existing contractors, so the process of requalifying said providers gradually becomes a linear and static process that is followed throughout. Organizations often adopt technology such as Contractor Compliance to streamline this process, and others may opt for different practices such as manual requalification, or outsourcing their contractor management efforts to external services. However, what happens when you need to qualify a brand new contractor? Requalification is a common topic seen across the contractor management world, but the initial vetting process is a very intricate one that requires multiple steps and assessments to ensure that your organization receives the best quality of work available, along with a promise of the utmost safety and compliance standards to be met.

What is Contractor Qualification?

Contractor qualification is a string of processes implemented to assess and measure the abilities of a contractor in relation to their safety practices and productivity output. Ensuring that you efficiently vet your contractors goes hand in hand with the return on investment experienced by your company. Within this simple definition lies a multifaceted method aimed at ensuring that your organization meets its internal requirements by onboarding a provider that can complete delegated work efficiently, safely, and within the appointed time frame. This process is also often referred to as contractor prequalification. So why is this process so integral to your business operations as a whole? Without stating the obvious, the quality of the contractors you onboard effectively determines the trajectory of your operations and creates a steep impact on all the little intricacies found within the larger scope of business activities. Despite its evident significance, many companies still struggle to achieve a productive means to qualification.

When initially looking to onboard a contractor, you must investigate these three primary factors of qualification.

1. Do they have the required qualifications/credentials to complete this job?
2. Do they have a history of accidents or non-compliance?
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3. What factors of their reputation matter the most to your company?

       -  Previous project experience

        -  Turnover rate

        -  Management processes

        -  Past clients

        - Size/number of contractors

Having a set framework of questions you expect to be answered is an essential stepping stone that leads to ensuring that your new contractor(s) fulfills all prerequisites prior to onboarding. This serves as a filtration method in and of itself and additionally aids in preventing delays in operations. Having this system in place is also important when it comes to track-ability and record-keeping, should you need to repeat these steps in the future. In the pursuit of efficiency, the qualification process is aimed at minimizing the time and effort required to onboard an appropriately qualified contractor. Doing this helps boil down frequent guesswork into a singular standardized procedure that all new hires are expected to follow and fulfill. This also assists in maintaining internal safety practices and minimizing any potential risk brought on from external service providers.

Redefining the Framework:

Many companies are beginning to realize that manual qualification processes are slow, inaccurate, inconsistent, and outdated. Furthermore, the growing intricacies of contractor management are making it increasingly difficult for safety professionals to determine standardized practices when it comes to qualification. To that point, more organizations are beginning to gravitate towards innovative technological solutions such as Contractor Compliance. With a primary focus on safety and compliance programs, Contractor Compliance provides businesses with a fully automated contractor qualification process that affords them the benefit of recruiting only the most qualified workers and the flexibility of managing their qualification processes in-house. Businesses also appreciate birds-eye visibility, full control of operational management, and a significant reduction in cost and administrative hours spent on this process.

Contractor Compliance’s rich database houses a wide array of different contractors that are all effectively prequalified to complete work on your job site. This allows hiring organizations to source quality contractors in a matter of minutes. The platform collects current and historical data on contractors’ activities and measures them against compliance indicators that assess whether a contractor is qualified or not. These indicators include a history log on non-compliance, current and/or expired credentials, and incident history. These contractor qualification systems are a powerful tool to use when filtering out all low quality providers in an effort to provide businesses with workers who will not pose any issues with risk and liability down the line. Essentially, this digital solution completes the entire prequalification process on your behalf, leaving you with the sole responsibility of picking the contractor that suits your requirements with the peace of mind of knowing that any of your picks will be efficient, safe, and compliant. Many companies spend a significant amount of time wondering how to assess a contractor, this digital solution redefines this framework by predetermining all the necessary requirements individualized to your business’ needs.

Companies like Bonduelle and Jameson continually use Contractor Compliance’s qualification systems to ensure top notch compliance from the contractors that they onboard, it’s about time that your organization does the same. Significantly cut down on admin time and remove the guesswork from picking the right people to complete a job by implementing a software solution that automates your entire qualification process and provides a linear view of your compliance efforts. Contractor Compliance gives businesses the confidence to freely onboard contractors that they know are suitable for their needs from both a productivity and safety perspective. Are you looking for a simple solution that turns this seemingly never-ending task into one that is effortless and efficient? Book a demo with one of our safety experts today!