HSE Supervising: A Key Tool for Organizing Systematic Control

Context: Why Contractor Control Became a Challenge

Managing contractors has long remained a blind spot for many enterprises. Work was outsourced, and with it, seemingly, the responsibility. However, the statistics are relentless: in construction and investment projects, contractors account for about 70% of injuries. NLMK Group, which employs tens of thousands of contractors worldwide, faced the need to radically change its approach to their control. Anton Panin, Project Manager at NLMK Group, explains how the supervising tool helped build systematic work with contractors amid a shortage of internal resources.

From Resource Shortage to Systematic Control

In 2019, the situation required decisive action: the ambitious goal of reducing the LTIFR to 0.5 by 2022 seemed difficult to achieve. The problem was the lack of proactive work with the prerequisites for injuries — unsafe acts and conditions. In a year, less than a thousand such violations were recorded across the entire group of companies. There was nothing to analyze, and internal resources for large-scale control were insufficient.

The solution was to engage external auditors — supervisors. The speaker demonstrates by example that supervising is not just oversight, but a comprehensive tool. Supervisors were required to provide systematic control: targeted workplace inspections, documentation audits (method statements, permits-to-work), statistics collection, and analytics. But their role as mentors was equally important. Supervisors had to train workers, conduct safety talks, participate in line walkdowns, and assist in communication with the client.

Control Specifics: General Supervising and Technical Oversight

The presentation details the approach to dividing supervising into two areas. General supervising provided systematic control on site, acting as a link between the client and the contractor. A supervisor in this role is not an inspector, but an educator helping to build the right processes.

The second area is technical oversight, focused on specific and high-risk work, primarily working at heights. Specialists with deep competencies controlled scaffolding erection, the correctness of permit-to-work execution, and the actual process of working at heights.

Implementation Results: From 1,000 to 40,000 Identified Risks

The effect of implementing supervising was impressive. By the end of 2023, the number of registered unsafe acts and conditions grew from less than 1,000 to 40,000. These are not just numbers, but tens of thousands of prevented potential incidents. Thanks to comprehensive work, the share of violations during work at heights decreased from 38% to 13%.

Over three years, supervisors conducted more than 1,000 targeted inspections, identified over 100,000 violations (98% of which were eliminated), trained more than 10,000 contractor workers, and organized hundreds of HSE meetings and forums. As a result, overall contractor injuries decreased by almost 60%.

Lessons and Pitfalls: How to Choose the Right Partner

The speaker emphasizes that the supervising services market is still immature. Finding ready-made specialists for specific tasks is difficult. Key lessons learned by NLMK:

• Do not skimp on quality: lowering rates will lead to hiring incompetent specialists working "by the book" without engagement.
• Clear KPIs: performance indicators should not be reduced to the number of identified violations, otherwise supervisors will turn into formal inspectors. Proactive metrics are needed.
• Competition: engaging several supervising companies stimulates them to improve service quality and propose new initiatives.
• Quality committees: regular meetings with the heads of supervising companies help adjust work and discuss areas for improvement.

What You Will Learn from This Webinar:

• How to organize effective contractor control with a shortage of internal HSE specialists?
• What is the difference between general supervising and technical oversight, and how to combine them?
• How to properly set KPIs for external supervisors so they do not turn into formal inspectors?
• What mistakes are most often made when choosing a supervising company and how to avoid them?
• How to justify the costs of engaging external supervisors to management?