GoContractor’s Completion Certificates are now customisable to suit your exact needs: A4, wallet sized, hard-hat sticker – whatever is most practical for your site

Contractor safety is critical to GoContractor, helping companies to form a safer working environment, more compliant with vital rules and regulations. This is why GoContractor is always looking for ways to improve its industry-leading cloud-based onboarding software solution.

Adding new features to this software solution helps hard hat executives to reduce the number of on-site injuries and other workplace incidents from occurring. These issues can delay projects significantly, boosting compensation costs and reducing company profits as a result.

Recently, the company added more features to its software solution, including upgrading the design of the solution’s safety certificates. It has also improved its printing options, providing safety administrators with more flexibility to output the certificates.

Current users can upgrade to this new certificate design without any additional costs, improving both the health and safety management of on-site contractors. This demonstrates GoContractor’s personal trust in this design, helping employers to achieve outstanding health and safety management.

A More Practical Safety Certificate Design

This new design offers a more comprehensive, understandable version of the safety certificate, still including all the mandatory information required. Upgrading this design also allows administrators to print the safety certificate in three sizes—A4, letter, and credit card size. The previous design provided a logical but quite basic looking certificate.

The new design is also more practical for contractors working on-site. They will no longer have to fold certificates, while carrying them on the job. The new credit card printing option enables administrators to create a safety certificate that contractors can place in their wallets.

What Is a Safety Certificate?

To manage contractors safely and effectively,  contingent and temporary workers must have all of their mandatory documentation, that is both completed and updated. Also critical for better safety is the improvement of existing management systems. They should be designed to minimize potential risks, cutting financial and operational costs, as well as reducing the number of workplace injuries that could delay projects, causing companies to miss deadlines. That’s where a Safety Certificate for Contractors (SCC) comes in.

The SCC is a standard applicable to the auditing and certification of safety management systems. The standard was initially developed to enable hard hat companies to boost safety awareness, cutting down the number of accidents occurring on-site. Gradually, the SCC took over in importance.  

Today, the industry regards SCC as a mandatory requirement for any companies conducting activities on job sites that are not their premises. This standard is similar to other critical management safety systems, including ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, as well as OHSAS 18001. The SCC demonstrates a company’s commitment to occupational health and safety.

Why is the SCC Important?

Adopting the SCC management standard commits companies to the long-term goal of continuously improving the management of their health and safety policy. Unlike other management systems, such as OHSAS 18001 and ISO 9001, the SCC standard provides an increasing improvement in the control of safety, health, and the environment (SHE).  

Meeting this standard is a challenge, but will pay off for companies in the long run, reducing workplace incidents and lowering the costs involved. However, senior decision-makers, must provide sufficient resources to meet the required standards. Critical considerations for companies include:

1. Determining the company strategy to make this a success.
2. Deciding on the best way to build a decision-making process regarding SHE management.  
3. Measuring, identifying, and reducing the varying levels of hazardous risks involved.

Smaller companies have certain advantages when it comes to meeting the necessary standards. While they can be more flexible in approaching safety management, they can also make quick safety changes, implementing them a lot faster than larger companies.

Lines of communication within smaller companies are also a lot shorter, promoting better and more responsive communication throughout the company and on-site. Nevertheless, every company needs to concentrate on the continuous improvement of the health and safety management systems, which the SCC standard promotes.

Action Plan for Assessing Safety Management  

Health and Safety Executive’s employer’s guide for managing contractors provides practical advice in the creation and maintenance of health and safety systems. Designed primarily for small to medium-sized companies in the UK, this guide can be of use to businesses in other industries and larger companies.

The five-step action plan for assessing health and safety procedures and practices is listed below. This plan covers five critical areas of health and safety management:

1. POLICIES – your health and safety policy, including contractor arrangements.
2. ORGANIZING – involves people working in the organization, in-house staff, and contractors; lines of communication and authority.
3. PLANNING AND DOING – practical arrangements and methods of working that are used; contracts/agreements whether written or not.
4. MONITORING – remaining to keep track of what actually happens.
5. REVIEWING AND LEARNING – researching how the company is getting on with contractor management, deciding what needs to be improved and how to do it.

The plan comes originally from HSE’s leaflet Managing health and safety. Five steps to success. This guide also provides a checklist businesses can use to assess their existing health and safety management position.

Obtaining Safety Certificate Accreditation

Accreditation services exist, helping companies to certify their management systems and meet the SCC standard.

This Scheme helps construction companies to refine health and safety management by offering tangible objectives to meet. It also certifies those contractors whose safety systems they’ve assessed, showing that they have met specific criteria, including the ILO guidelines for Safety Management Systems (ILO-OSH 2001).

Designed for contractors of all sizes, this Scheme is the product of a joint effort by Dublin’s Construction Industry Federation (CIF) and Belfast’s Construction Employers Federation (CEF). It is applicable to companies in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain.

Safety Certificate for Contractors: The Bottom Line

Managing health and safety should be the primary concern of hard hat companies around the world. Having more contractors working on-site increases the risk of someone being injured on the job, since these workers are often new to the company and job site.  

While hiring contractors has its benefits, it also presents serious health and safety management challenges. Obtaining SCC accreditation is a critical step for companies to deal with these challenges, boosting health and safety management systems within the company and on job sites.

The emphasis that SCC places on the continuous improvement of a company’s health and safety management systems can dramatically increase on-site safety, reducing workplace accidents, cutting costs and boosting profits. Accreditation services can help companies achieve this designation.

Upgrading the design of the safety certificate in GoContractor’s software solution can be done under no extra costs, helping companies to meet the SCC requirements for accreditation. This new design further displays GoContractor’s commitment to helping companies create a safer, healthier working environment by achieving compliance.