How to Manage Contractor Compliance in Enterprise Facilities

Enterprises across all industries need flexible labor. Hiring contractors allows organizations to scale at need, accomplish projects quickly, and leverage specific expertise. Despite the many advantages of this agile workforce, managing contractors presents weighty challenges. For companies to stay ahead of the competition in today's fast, digital economy, site-focused contractor management solutions are crucial.  

As part of the iLobby commitment to help complex organizations, this blog unravels the intricacies of contractor compliance management, its most prevalent difficulties, and possible solutions. 

What is Contractor Compliance Management?  

In simple terms, contractor compliance management is a process to streamline and protect your organization and its people. Managing contractors is time-consuming and extensive due to its detailed requirements. The level of detail and heavy documentation is necessary to safeguard organizations against liability, validate credentials, and create audit-ready reports.  

Smart visitor management solutions give project and site managers complete insight and control over their contractors. Upgrading to automated visitor management speeds up contractor induction while increasing accuracy and accountability.  

In contrast, pen and paper logs can lead to discrepancies, lost files, and disorganization. Likewise, inadequate screenings or missing accreditation are security risks. Contractor management systems help streamline tasks, increase efficiency and give you a return on valuable resources.  

For the most part, the mechanisms mentioned above are features of visitor management. This software is responsible for giving you control over admission by monitoring personnel on-site. 

Contractors in an Agile Environment  

Contractors are an asset. They allow you to bring specialized knowledge for individual projects and adapt to shifting workloads. Depending on your needs, contractor compliance management may require a framework or software for tracking, monitoring, and auditing employees.  

By using a dynamic management system, you can rest assured that employees are adhering to local laws and internal regulations or policies. In addition to providing real-time updates, the platform should provide instant access to relevant information at a glance, including guides, inductions, and even documentation.  

Industries and facilities often require contractors to supply multiple documents and signatures. This includes professional certifications, liability waivers, and legalities (such as a non-disclosure agreement). Manually submitting all of this can take 10 to 15 minutes (sometimes as much as an hour). That's a waste of time for the contractor and your personnel. This is especially problematic when signing groups in.  

A digital visitor log uses a self-guided kiosk that decreases sign-in time by 90%. They can also add additional benefits like printing contractor badges on demand, completing safety and orientation videos, and capturing e-signatures. Visitor pre-registration features can speed up contractor induction even further, ending lobby traffic altogether.  

These benefits are augmented by how contractor management helps ensure compliance by keeping track of relevant workflows and data. Your contractors can access relevant health and safety data while spending all their efforts on the task at hand. 

Top Challenges When Managing Contractors   

Contractors are an indispensable component of enterprise operations but come with many risks and concerns. A workforce management platform is the most effective way to alleviate the following challenges of contractor management. 

Outsourcing Suitable Candidates  

The proper administration of contractors is important. Mismanagement or complications of contractors can alter project timelines, quality, and safety. Finding qualified individuals is a tedious task. Every step of the process needs thorough monitoring to guarantee compliance.   

At the same time, staying on top of necessary certifications or documentation and conveying requirements is vital. Manual procedures demand time, divert resources from primary activities, and can cost a fortune. This can also happen when you fail to upkeep and maintain your management standards.   

Pre-registration and visitor screening are facilities management features that help eradicate this problem. 

Tracking Staff and Productivity   

Enterprises with a large workforce call for innovative approaches to better manage contractors and visitors. For example, contractor management software must often include workforce monitoring and registration. This is a safe and discreet approach to recording data about any individual who enters your facility. 

Whether your goal is to improve safety or boost compliance, visitor management can be a game-changer for productivity, accountability, and schedule management. What matters most to businesses is the consistent output of employees according to assigned tasks. A suitable platform helps managers and contractors prepare for an unexpected influx of work and plan time spent in the workplace.  

Freeing up staff from manual management also allows for a focus on strategy. To top it off, human error is eliminated, greatly improving accuracy. 
 

Identification and Security  

On a day-to-day basis, every organization needs to manage contractor credentials. Setting up visitor kiosks to print contractor badges during sign-in is an effective solution. Some advantages of visitor badges include access, visible identification, and speed-up return visits.  

Mobile credentials using QR codes or kiosk-generated IDs are gaining popularity due to their flexibility and ease of use. Besides encouraging mobility, the check-in and out process is significantly faster. Moreover, security staff can view details in real-time rather than sorting through the paperwork. 

Health and Safety Risks  

Managing the flow of visitors is essential for health and safety officers. Manage safety and accountability with a live view of who is in your building.   

Contractors might also be requested to supply contact information or their photograph. Consequently, anyone with bad intentions might be discouraged from entering as all information is stored on the facility's server.  

Consider crises like a fire that might require evacuation. If there is no streamlined way to find out who is present on the enterprise site, it might be challenging to track contractors. Emergency management software overcomes this challenge with responsive communication tools. EHS can set up notifications providing evacuation details and muster point information to all visitors through SMS. 

Following health regulations is fundamental in many industries, especially in the post-COVID-19 era. Health screenings are standard, and questionnaires are widely used to gather vital information from contractors. An automated VMS is an ultimate solution to simplify the process and reduce human error.  

Features of an Integrated Contractor Management System  

Streamline contractor compliance and upgrade workforce management with a platform with the following characteristics: 

Digital Sign-In, Pre-Registration, and Onboarding 

Onboarding contractors and temporary employees can be monotonous and drain resources. Instead, a configured onboarding process creates profiles through a self-service module. This reduces the chance of mistakes when collecting data like insurance or tax certifications.  

Leading enterprises use contractor management software induction. Take the burden of work off of your organization and personnel. Contractors check in, submit paperwork, and complete briefings independently.    

When you find a suitable contractor, get them to work right away. Your customers will feel at ease knowing you have a screening mechanism that allows service standards up to the task at hand. All information is secure and manageable on a single dashboard through pre-registration and digital sign-ups. 

Request or Upload Specific Documents  

A contractor management program instantly generates, monitors, and requests paperwork during sign-in. Automatically access required paperwork by searching your database for certificates and training confirmation. These can also be sent directly to admin or contractors conveniently.  

Improving communication is a simple means of accelerating internal operations. Your training materials and induction procedures should also be adaptable to this software. Update specific training needs, certifications, or scheduling automatically. Similarly, each business location can have its system because of contractor management software's adaptability and customization.  

Easy-Reporting and Support 

Plant and facility managers need access to information and analysis about contractor management. An intuitive UI promotes time management while removing muddle information. If you can use this data to make strategic decisions on contractors, you can get the most out of visitor management systems.  

Internal Co-ordination and Workflow  

Contractor compliance management provides a comprehensive workflow solution to recruit, screen, hire, supervise and monitor independent contractors and suppliers. Site-based tracking, orientation, contractor badges, admin insurance, accreditation, and contracts are some ways this is possible.  

Various industries have vigorous regulations or permit requirements and changing circumstances that must be considered when managing contractors. Not to mention, various managers and workplaces have different processes and approvals lined up.  

The contractor management platform allows you to develop and set up individual prompts and content and automate compliance. This also makes them ideal for keeping up with ever-changing business and prescreening requirements before contractors arrive on-site. 

Lead Your Facilities into the Future  

Improve contractor compliance, induction, and management with FacilityOS. iLobby creates strong solutions for complex work with improved control, automation, and agility.