Canadian Occupational Safety

JUNE/JULY 2017 23 baseline understanding about their safety program; we know they've been accredited and audited." The hiring employer can also look to a contractor's past safety record and request statistics, Robinson says. Statistics from the workers' compen- sation board can provide an objective measure that will help an employer to determine if the contractor is better, or worse, than the industry average. However, he adds, it's important to remember you may have to take the company's particular circumstance into account. For example, if a small company with low exposure hours has one relatively serious event, it could skew the premium rate in a negative way and may not be refl ec- tive of actual performance. On the other hand, a large employer that has projects involving site populations of 3,000 or 4,000 people will end up with claims due to the sheer size of the workforce. "While companies will look at WCB performance, those metrics, like any metric, need to be consid- ered in context," Robinson says. "And automation helps with that, to be able to compile data and allow you to compare contractor to contractor." Within a contractors' safety program, look for a training program, in partic- ular, one that covers the basics of the specifi c industry. Some industries have their industry-sponsored initiatives that embody training and orientation standards, such as Petroleum Safety Training (PST) or the Construction Safety Training System (CSTS). Some associations have published written contractor pre-qualifi cation best practices for their industr y, documents that are developed by sub-committees that bring together and expand on existing standards, Robinson adds. Three organizations that publish these best-practice guides are the Ontario General Contractors' Association, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and Construc- tion Owners' Association of Alberta. More progressive companies, Rob- inson adds, will also look at leading indicators, a metric used to drive and measure activities carried out to prevent and control injury. How frequently are safety meetings held? What kind of training is provided? To what level are you training supervi- sors? Do we have the right skill sets in the right jobs? "These are areas of competence that companies are looking at now. They're proactive things that many purchas- ers will look at as part of the bigger assessment: What are we getting when we hire this company?" he says. Jamie Wright, director of London, Ont.-based Mentor Safety Con- sultants, a safety consulting fi rm focusing on the construction, indus- trial and mining sectors, says the hiring company must verif y the potential contractor is compliant with the latest occupational health and safety law — with construction or industrial regulations, for exam- ple — and that it has all the training required to come onto your site. "Someone sits down with the con- tractor or it's in your bid package — it's always good to include it in your bid package — that the contrac- tor has to meet these requirements and must prove compliance with the OHS act. You don't want to do that after the fact, fi rst day of the job, with all these contractors standing around saying pull out your certifi - cates. You're going to have a surprise." When the contractor has been selected, sit down and review the job hazard assessment. The contractor may contribute good ideas based on its own expertise. At the end of the process, make sure you agree on what controls are going to be put in place to reduce workers' risk. ORIENTATION With every new contractor or worker hired, use an orientation checklist and go through it before they start work to help ensure essential certifi - cates and other documents are not missed, Wright says. Do they have their workers' compensation board certifi cates? Do they have the required trade certifi cates? Do they have their Workplace Hazardous Mate- rials Information System (WHMIS) training? Do they have hazard reporting? "You want to have a check- list of all the things that these contractors should have before they come on your job site and a process to verify it," he says. A good policy, and one that is becoming more and more common in workplaces, is to require a pre- task plan — a hazard assessment that the subcontractor performs and submits to the contractor on a daily or weekly basis depending on the scope of the work. Once work begins, be aware that conditions may change, Tétreault says. You may discover, for example, there's a better procedure for a task. If so, update the contract with the new procedure. If scheduled workers cannot make it and must be replaced, ensure the new workers are properly trained. Check that equipment is in good condition; don't just assume that equipment and PPE is function- ing properly. SUPERVISION The hiring company should expect to supervise the work, conducting regu- lar spot checks. Workers may not all be aware of the agreed-on procedures and controls. Spot checks also serve to assure inspectors that the contractor is properly supervising the work, too. "You don't want to substitute your- self and become your contractor. But you need to check that the contractor is on top of his game and also check the workers themselves," Tétreault says. "If there was a breakdown in communication, in the end, it's not usually the supervisor who is injured; it's the worker. So you need to make sure the workers appear to know what they're doing." Maintaining open, regular com- munication between the hiring and contracted companies is essential, Wright says. Owners can achieve this by setting up joint health and safety and trades committees, for example, or holding daily safety toolbox talks fi rst thing every morning. "Safety is all about communica- tion: talking about hazards, talking JUNE/JULY 2017 23 cates and other documents are not missed, Wright says. Do they have their workers' compensation board certifi cates? Do they have the required trade certifi cates? Do they have their Workplace Hazardous Mate- rials Information System (WHMIS) training? Do they have hazard reporting? "You want to have a check- list of all the things that these contractors should have before they come on your job site and a process to verify it," he says. A good policy, and one that is becoming more and more common in workplaces, is to require a pre- task plan — a hazard assessment fi rst thing every morning. "Safety is all about communica- tion: talking about hazards, talking Six steps for successfully hiring and managing contractors and service providers 1. Defi ne the scope of work. 2. Establish contractor expectations. 3. Conduct contractor pre-qualifi cation and selection. 4. Choose and develop the appropriate agreement. 5. Manage the contractor. 6. Keep records and exercise due diligence. Source: Enform about controls, how you implement the controls and dealing with safety concerns as they come up. Keeping the avenues of communication open leads to a successful project," he says. If defi ciencies are not being cor- rected properly or in a timely manner, you need to communicate it and be prepared to take some disciplinary action, barring a worker from the site for lack of proper training, for example. You may even have to stop the work and end the contract, Tétreault adds. ASSESSMENT When the job is fi nished, assess and record your evaluation of the contrac- tor's performance. Communicate your assessment to the contractor. You may also want to share your comments with others in the company, especially if there were aspects of the work the contractor did not do properly. "Usually, big corporations don't have one project contract engineer. They may have a few dozen. It's good to record your assessment somewhere so your colleagues who may have the same contractor are on the lookout for the contractor's defi ciencies," Tétreault says. After the death of the contractor at the oil drilling site, a spokesperson for Shell Canada — the hiring com- pany — expressed in a statement his sadness at the worker's death. "The safety of our staff, contractors and neighbours is our top priority in everything we do," he said. "We are working closely with the parties involved to gather more information and learn from this incident." Linda Johnson is a freelance journalist based in Toronto. She can be reached at lindajohnson@sympatico.ca.

• Cover