Safety Management of Contractor Manpower

Outsourcing of various industrial activities is common all over the world. It is rare to find organizations which do not follow this. This is done to overcome shortage of manpower, non-availability of experts in specific field, obligation to reduce permanent staff, financial considerations, etc. The skill sets of persons and duration vary with the requirement. Personnel from suppliers of equipment, instruments, etc too work in the premises for erection, commissioning, maintenance, etc. Thus other than regular employees, organizations deal with contractor manpower for housekeeping, maintenance, plant operations, erection/ commissioning, construction, material handling, canteens, etc in addition to the visitors like vendors, consultants, etc. Also, we find visitors, project students, apprentices, trainees, etc who stay in the organization for some duration.

Ensuring safety of all these persons is as important as regular employees. An analysis of accidents reveals that contractor workers are involved in 30-35% of accidents. The major reason for these accidents is lack of awareness about the hazards, supervision, failure to ensure supply and use of requisite safety gear to the workers both by the contractor and department in-charge.

Most of the occasions, persons engaged by the contractors are not same i.e floating workers and is difficult to ensure availability of same person for specific nature of work. This requires training of newly joined persons almost on weekly basis, if not every day and contractors exhibit resistance to send these newly joined workers for training.

The time needed by security personnel to permit contractor workers inside factory premises generally varies from 30 to 60 minutes depending upon the security level. The time available for work will reduce further after taking into account of time for training. As the attrition of employees is more, the working hours will reduce and this leads to shortcuts to avoid safety training of newly joined contractor workers.

It is observed that the small contractors generally deploy 2-10 persons in most of the works and generally he will have more than one work at site in his hand and he or his supervisor keeps shuttling between various work areas in the plant leading to poor supervision.

With increasing work load and reduction of manpower, plant in-charges too find it difficult to monitor all outsourced activities. Verbal communication instead of written communication also leads to misunderstanding of the task and wrongdoings during the work execution. To avoid any consequences, generally, following clauses will be included in the tender while outsourcing the activities.

·     Continuous supervision by the contractor,

·     Hiring technically suitable persons for the job,

·     Valid medical fitness certificate from qualified doctor for the persons to be employed,

·     Obtaining suitable insurance cover for the persons to be employed,

·     Prohibition of child labor,

·     Ensuring issue and use of PPE,

·     Sole responsibility of the contractor for all accidents and consequences arising out of it,

·     Use of tested and certified tools,

·     Bringing his own tools and equipment required for the work, etc

But, this is not suffice to ensure safety of these workers as we see violation of most of the clauses at many sites. To cut costs, apart from major machinery/devices offered by plant as per work order, contractors do not bring other tools, lifting tackles, weld sets, ladders, etc of their own and instead use from within the plant. In case of any accident, it is likely that concerned plant in-charge will be blamed for allowing using department material.

For civil works, it is common to see use of fire hydrant water or garden water. Fire hydrant water is for emergency use and garden water is generally recycled and treated water.

We find retired employees too taking up contract jobs in the organization and due to their familiarity with the plant and the staff, their seniority and that their peers/juniors will be working in the plant, some of them move as if they are department staff and this leads complacency / extra authority in using department materials and at the same time, when any accident takes place, they can easily influence and shift the blame.

Apart from these violations, it is likely that contractor works for jobs outside the scope of the work order. Unfamiliarity of workplace in these situations leads to accidents endangering both contractor workers and department staff.

When an accident takes place, in case of major treatment, question arises about who will foot the bill, as generally, small time contractors do not have requisite financial capability to bear the cost. Though, tender clause puts responsibility on the contractor, organizations end up in paying the bills in such situations. Sometimes, the cost of treatment exceeds the value of the contract itself, in which case recovery becomes difficult. To avoid these costs, contractor may takeout his injured person outside the premises from treatment and one will not find the injured again in the workplace. The reply usually given by the contractor will be that the person recovered and is working at some other site or that he went to his native place.

Now-a-days, many of the organizations have been certified for ISO/OHSAS and this requires ensuring safety of the persons in the organizations to whom we outsource or procure to meet our needs. With transparency being the buzzword, one should be more attentive because any incident is projected out of proportion, however small it is.

To ensure safety of contractor personnel working within / their own premises, organizations should have proper procedure for tendering, evaluation and selection of contractors who have, (i) well laid out policy for recruitment of manpower, (ii) regular training of man power, (iii) deployment of safety supervisor and (iv) defined  responsibility and accountability of all persons engaged. 

Organizations should have a designated person in every department / section, who should coordinate and obtain from all contractors working in their plant about (i)  number of persons engaged for each of the work with names, addresses, contact numbers, availability medical fitness certificates (ii) number of new persons brought in that day (iii) qualifications / experience (iv) tools brought to the specific workplace with relevant test certificates (v) issue of PPE to all persons (vi) facilities of the organization/department proposed to be used (vii) details of start and end date of the work, (viii) details of subcontractors, if any, etc.

Based on the above data, head of section/department should assess the need and ensure job specific training, safety measures to be taken, issue of specific PPE for work in different areas, availability of requisite safety permit and supervision for ensuring safety and issuing warning letters in case of violations. In case of work on machinery, material handling equipment, etc., he should ensure their safe working condition before allowing the contractor personnel for work.

Safety in-charge should obtain weekly/monthly reports about various outsourced activities, manpower engaged, permits issued and closed, etc. He should interact with concerned plant in-charges about safety issues specific to the workplace, reporting of incidents/occurrences and their investigation for corrective and preventive measures.

Following measures will be helpful in ensuring safety of contractor persons at workplace.

1.        Identification of jobs to be outsourced with job hazard analysis, safety measures to be taken, assessment of training requirements, supervision.
2.               Insertion of appropriate clauses in the tender and work order for penalties against violation of stated safety provisions. Though penalty clause is available, it is questionable on how many occasions this is used as one can find a number of violations every day. At the same time, when contractor appeals for cost escalation, the proposal is evaluated without considering the penalty amount to be recovered for stated violations. If a person is deployed specifically for safety supervision and recording the violations and issue notices for recovery, it will act as a deterrent and ensure safety at workplace.   
3.                Ensuring different colored uniform for persons engaged in outsourced activities for easier identification and monitoring.
4.          Ensuring contractor supervisor for every work undertaken by him in the site.
5.                   Valid medical fitness certificate for the job for all persons engaged, irrespective of the nature and duration of the work.
6.                   Maintaining register for outsourced works with details of contractor, number of persons engaged, availability of PPE, supervision, violations, etc.
7.                Records of pep talk and training with respect to the work, safety and emergency procedures.
8.                   Preparation of checklist based on job hazard analysis and safety work permit conditions for use by contractor.
9.                   Ensuring adequate insurance cover for the persons.
10.                   Compulsory medical examination of injured persons of the contractor after treatment.
11.                Maintaining first aid box by the contractor at the workplace.
12.                    Ensuring availability of sufficient clean drinking water at the workplace.
13.                    Ensuring change rooms for contractor workers with provisions for bathing.
14.                   Ensuring use of separate dress for persons engaged and their washing.
15.                   Display of warning signs, caution boards.
16.                  Checking of all permitted equipment, tools, etc by department persons before start of work every day for safe use by the contractor and maintaining the record with observations.
17.                   Display of safe operating instructions, safe operating procedures, do’s and don’ts in languages understood by the persons engaged for the work.
18.                   Prohibition of unauthorized use of facilities like water, electricity, forklifts, cranes, lifting tackles, weld sets, etc not covered in the work order.
19.                    Prohibition of use of fire hydrant water and garden water for any purpose other than intended.
20.                    Ensuring availability of proper access, use of tubular scaffolding, safety shoe, helmet, safety belt, anchoring provision, etc for civil works.

            In some organizations, all tender/work order proposals will be referred to safety department to study for assessing the safety measures taken by the proposer and advise necessary clauses for incorporation before release of tender / issue of work order. The main grouse of the contractors is that additional costs are imposed on them in the name of safety and this is due to improper documentation / clarity in the requirements stated in the tender document. To avoid this, plants are encouraged to send their draft proposals for tender for review and suggestion to insert appropriate safety clauses in the document before its release for enquiry. This results in proper cost estimates by contractors before quoting and enables provision and compliance for safety.  

Following are some of the general practices to be ensured/followed to reduce injuries/improve safety performance.

1. Plants should continuously put efforts to reduce outsourcing of activities by automation or other methods.
2. Plant in-charges shall ensure that only those outsourced activities as specified in the scope are executed with all safety provisions.
3. Work order should be cancelled for any work taken up beyond the scope of the work order.
4. Supervision by both department and contractor has to be ensured.
5.  Plant in-charge should be held responsible for initial and monthly training of the manpower engaged for outsourced activities.
6. Plant in-charge should ensure use of PPE like safety shoes, gloves, helmets, goggles, face shield, aprons, etc as required for the work, by the man power engaged in the outsourced activities, even if it is in the scope of the contractor.
7. For outsourced work, supervision from atleast shift in-charge should be ensured..
8. No outsourced work is permitted in night shifts.
9. No woman should be allowed to work on or near machinery in motion as per Factories Act.
10. Skills and qualifications for various categories of persons engaged during outsourcing should be specified.
11. Safety work permit should be taken before start of work by submitting, (i) job hazard analysis, (ii) valid medical fitness certificate, (iii) name/designation of the department person responsible for supervision and also for ensuring use of PPE. 

With the above, I am sure that safety of the contractor persons can be ensured.