Contractor Management

As a national retailer operating across the country Harris Scarfe needed a new method of managing the health and safety of contractors. I was tasked with reviewing current systems and developing a solution to manage the obligations of  both contractors and the organisation going forward.

Taking advantage of the Safety First website platform and the existing eLearning system I developed a fully automated electronic method of contractor management.

Screenshot of the contractor portal entrance screen, located at http://contractor.safetyfirsths.info

I created a dedicated contractors website within the existing safety first website, the ‘portal’ was designed to explain the induction program whilst providing contractors with clear information regarding the organisations expectations. All of the resources and tools required by a contractor were made available through the portal, such as ‘safe work method statements’, ‘work permits’ and organisational policies.

Once a contractor had read through the materials within the portal they were then required to signup an account at the ‘elearning centre’ and complete an online quiz. One of the specifications of this project was that it needed to be self managed, the operations department was unable to manage the system on a day to day basis and as the organisation utilises a range of contractors across the country automation was essential. To provide the required level of service I set up the induction system to be completely self managed, using open source learning software ‘Moodle‘ I created a complete induction system. The only user tasks required were to send the contractor a letter with instructions.

Screenshot of the contractor induction topic page

Example induction card issued on completion of the quiz

On completion of the induction quiz the contractor would be sent  certificate of achievement, including a credit card sized ‘induction card’, the card would be required to be presented each time the contractor attended a Harris Scarfe worksite. The issued card would be recorded on a central database which could be monitored by the operations department, cards had a validity of 365 days and on expiry would require renewal, the renewal process was also completely automated requiring now user involvement.

The program was implemented sucessfully in 2011 and in its first 6 months was put to the test by over 150 individual contractors.