Everyone understands that when contractor employees work unsafely, beyond the risks to reputation, inspections, and fines, there are risks associated with the demoralization of the client's own employees working nearby. If contractor employees work unsafely and the client's staff see this, they start to wonder: "Is it okay to work like that? Why aren't they being penalized? ..."
That is why we decided to erase the "Client-Contractor" boundaries; we react the same way to both safe and unsafe work, regardless of whether it's a contractor or the client. However, while a system of work stoppages, suspensions, HSE commissions, and disciplinary measures is defined for the client's employees, what should be done with contractor employees?
How do we handle violators of Cardinal Safety Rules (CSR) among contractors? In our case, we decided to introduce a "yellow and red card" system.
The essence of this approach is as follows:
When a CSR violation is detected for the first time, the employee and their supervisor are restricted from the site and sent for training, followed by a knowledge check. The training is assigned based on the type of work where the violation occurred. Trainings have been developed for all types of high-risk work (HRW), lifting operations, hot work, as well as courses on general personnel admission to HRW and the development of safety culture within the organization.
If a contractor employee commits a second CSR violation, their badge is blocked, and the possibility of issuing a new badge is excluded, even if they join a different contracting organization.
Any violations by contractor employees cannot leave the engineering and technical staff (ITS) without accountability; this is why the direct supervisor is blocked along with the violator. We all understand that the supervisor bears full responsibility for the workers, including the safe organization of work and monitoring its execution.
Based on our experience working with contractors, this system has proven to be very effective.
Why do we give a chance to improve? We must take the global labor shortage into account. Like many organizations, contractors do not have a large pool of permanent qualified personnel. By permanently dismissing truly valuable workers, we put the contractor in a stalemate — a stalemate that could be fatal for them. A replacement worker will not always be more disciplined than the previous one, who already understands the work system and has undergone training.
If this practice is applied alongside fines and the work of a contractor commission, it will yield results in a short time.