Contractor Assessment in Numbers: Evaluating Workplace Safety

Every organization hiring a contractor for construction and installation works eventually faces the same questions: \"How do we know if anything is changing?\" and \"Is this good or bad?\"

OTEKO JSC has developed its own system for assessing workplace safety at construction sites.

Initial attempts to evaluate construction safety using safety audits and incidents as metrics led us down the wrong path. While we did benefit from these metrics — analyzing observations (unsafe acts/unsafe conditions/safe acts) qualitatively and quantitatively, identifying non-compliance categories, profiling specific contractors, pinpointing systemic issues, and developing corrective actions — we were unable to demonstrate to the Client or the contractor itself where we stood then versus where we are now.

This very valid question prompted us to create a universal workplace safety assessment checklist. We divided the checklist into evaluable blocks (documentation, work organization, PPE, equipment operation, material storage and personnel facilities, work at height, hot works, etc.). This allowed us to represent workplace safety in numerical terms.

Crucially, we were able to show trends across workplaces and contracting organizations as a whole, as well as compare different sites and contractors. However, after using this checklist for several months, we realized it did not reflect the true situation on-site. For instance, a contractor with many minor observations would receive a lower score than a contractor with fewer but more severe violations involving high risks of negative consequences.

Our team put in significant effort to redesign the checklist, accounting for types of work and the risks of potential consequences in emergency situations. We developed calculation formulas using risk-based coefficients. This assessment method reflects the actual situation on-site and makes it possible to track a contractor's progress over time.