4 risks of using contractors in your workplace – and how to mitigate them

Under OHS legislation, you have a duty of care to provide a working environment that is safe and without risks to health. This means that you are responsible for any safety hazards that exist on your premises, even if those hazards are introduced by external contractors.

And remember: you also have a duty to protect the health and safety of contractors (and their employees) on your site. Essentially, you owe the same OHS duties to contractors as you do to your own employees.

The following case proves just how careful you have to be:

In 2010, Coates Hire were fined $250,000 by a County Court for failing to provide a safe workplace after a contractor’s employee was fatally crushed by an ‘elevated work platform’ (EWP) at their Dandenong depot.

The worker (who was employed by Redline, a contractor for Coates) had driven the EWP onto a truck instead of using a winch cable to load it, which was the method required by Coates’ safety procedure. However, the worker had never been given a copy of the procedure, nor had he been inducted into Coates’ safety procedures.

In June 2012, the Victorian Court of Appeal increased the amount of Coates’ fine to $500,000, after the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed the decision, arguing that the original fine amount was ‘manifestly inadequate’. If Coates had not pleaded guilty, the fine would have been increased to $600,000. DPP (Vic) v Coates Hire Operations Pty Ltd (25 June 2012).

Before you engage a contractor to perform any kind of work for your business, you must make sure you are aware of the following:

your duty of care to contractors and their workers;
the risks posed by contractors to your business; and
how to manage and control those risks.

Here are four risks you should consider carefully before hiring a contractor:

1. Contractors commonly work at a number of different workplaces and they don’t have a particular commitment to your business. Therefore, their knowledge of your safety management system, compliance with your safety requirements and adherence to your supervision requirement is reduced.

2. Contractors are not part of your company’s ‘safety culture’ because they are not in your workforce and focused on your safety goals every day.

3. Contractors are commonly brought onto a site to do specialist work. As a result, they are not subject to the same supervision and the specific nature of their work may not be as easily controlled by the host workplace.

4. When hiring a contractor, you are motivated to choose the worker based on a skill gap in your business and their safety performance may not be a key factor in selection.

In order to mitigate the above risks, you need to develop a system that inducts, trains, monitors and supervises contractors on your worksites.

Taking these five key steps will help you to do this:

1.Carry out a due diligence check on any contractor you intend to engage and ensure they are suitably qualified to perform the work you need done.

2.Ensure that contractors are thoroughly inducted into your workplace safety management system.

3.Ensure that contractors have prepared and are following safe work method statements.

4.Supervise the work of contractors to make sure they are complying with those safe work method statements.

5.Take all reasonably practicable steps to consult with contractors. This involves understanding the nature of the role they are performing, discussing with them how they intend to undertake the work and providing resources to support them.

6.Conduct a post-contract evaluation of contractors’ health and safety performance.

Taking all of these steps can be challenging, particularly if your business has no day-to-day involvement in the contractor’s project, or if you use multiple contractors – but it is also essential if you want to properly manage and control the risks posed by contractors in your workplace.

You can find detailed, practical information on taking all of the above steps in the OH&S Handbook. So why not take a free 14-day trial of the handbook today?

Just fill in the order form on the opposite page or visit ohshandbook.com.au for more information.