Paper Safe, Systems Foolish: What to Look for in a Third-Party Prequalification System

My late grandmother had a favorite saying that went like this “penny wise, pound foolish”. The adage referred to the effort to save a small amount of money now that ends up costing cost way more money in the future. What things do we do as safety professionals that save money today that ends up costing us so much more money in the future? One of my pet peeves (and what I also see as a big mistake with safety programs” is a paper safety and systems foolish approach

Almost every safety professional at some point has managed one or more third party prequalification software accounts where the company is required to upload written policies and procedures meant to show hiring clients that the company be trusted to perform safe work if selected. The reality of this method of rating acceptable safety and risk partners is that the ratings programs for prequalification mostly look for “paper safe” companies. Companies that can write policies, procedures, and programs in a specific way, incorporating necessary language will earn the covet “green” status, or gold medal stamp, or A-rating.

?What the prequalification portals generally don’t have are additional checks and balances needed to verify that companies have an integrated safety management system (SMS) that assists with personnel (workers), practical hazard identification, prevention through design (PtD) initiatives, application of knowledge, and assurance of consistent task accomplishment. The following additional services that some of the prequalification now provide as essential add on services include but aren’t limited to the following:

·???????Frequent on-site, paper, and safety management system audits

·???????On-site monitoring and observations

·???????Commitment/leadership development methods

·???????Hazard identification program emphasis

·???????Source of workers/employees/temporary contractors

·???????Insurance management

·???????Training

·???????Accident/Incident investigation procedures

·???????Injury case management

·???????Prevention through Design

·???????Risk assessment

·???????Change management

·???????Psychological safety/psychosocial safety

·???????Disciplinary policies

The main point of contractor prequalification through a SaaS prequalification management site is to ensure companies can demonstrate that they meet (or exceed) a hiring organization’s standards for safety. Third party prequalification programs can protect an organization’s public reputation and help you keep insurance costs under control from before there are any “boots on the ground” at a facility or project site. Savvy safety professionals know that any prequalification program is not a single solution to all an organization’s safety needs (“paper wise”). Paper safety is one step that ensures that prospective contractors meet a general contractor’s minimum requirements, and it should not be where any safety program stops its growth. “Green” or A-rating or a gold medal only signifies your organization is aware of minimum requirements to come to the site. When work becomes active, active measurement, observation, and control activities as mentioned above must complement the written program components.

A robust SMS is the answer to taking good (a positive prequalification rating) to the next level – from winning the ability to bid on jobs and/or do work for many general contractors. To build your SMS, the following factors are illustrative of readily available data that would be highly inferential to measuring contractor safety reputation:

·???????Adherence to defined best practices for the different tasks in the overall job.

·???????Buy, inspect, train on, and use innovative safety equipment (PPE, ladders, etc.)

·???????Create an environment where the reporting of workplace near misses, hazards, unsafe acts, conditions, and equipment issues is common and not penalized.

·???????Engage workers to offer suggestions or solutions to safety problems or concerns.

·???????Plan the work for safety – compliance, best practices, prevention through design, reviews of policies and procedures, and assess fit to work.

·???????Support management professional development to know how to support the safety programs.

·???????Provide workplace job, task, equipment, tool, or position hazard assessments for annual review by employees on hazards unique to their job assignments.

·???????provide orientation to new employees on safety requirements before beginning work (combination of formal training, online and on-the-job training)

·???????Clearly informing employees of unsafe conditions and safety hazards consistently and effectively enforcing the safety program.

·???????Ensure by observation and third-party audit that employees have work experience before they are allowed to perform hazardous operations on their own.

·???????Ensure rapid correction of identified safety hazards through adoption of interim solutions and permanent corrections.

·???????Providing early return-to-work opportunities and ensuring compliance with medical limitations

In summary, the “paper safety” approach that gets organizations qualified with third-party prequalification systems is a penny-wise approach. This approach should not be seen as the end of what we should be doing for our workforce or our company. It is important to “spend” the extra time, money, effort, etc. to go above and beyond the prequalification process to an SMS no matter how rudimentary it is. Setting up a system of processes and expectations for the organization’s safety that can be imprinted on multiple facilities or sites should be the goal.

Do safety prequalification portals have the help available for these extra tasks? Yes! And any size organization should ask for ways that the SaaS providers can help provide consulting, culture surveys, audits, and educational opportunities such as training, safety leadership assistance, or technical skills and advice. One example would be Veriforce. Veriforce not only provides contractor and subcontractor safety prequalification services, but they also provide consulting, auditing, training, and many other boutique services that can be added on to the minimum prequalification package.

The questions you need to ask yourself when thinking about your safety program is – “Am I doing enough? And can I do more?” If you rest on your “paper safety” laurels, you may find that your organization is unprepared for unforeseen events, how to respond, and how to recover. Moreover, fundamentals of prevention through design fall to the wayside when we focus on the compliance aspect of what we do (“paper safety”) and not the essence of what we should do and what is right by the workers. Let’s not be “systems foolish” – safety management systems are the solid foundation that is needed to support all the other elements of a safety program that are needed to prepare and prevent and do less responding to hazards and incidents after the fact.