Contractor management
If somebody got hurt in your plant room tomorrow, could you show who let them in?
You have trades on site most weeks: maintenance, HVAC, electrical, cleaning, a refurb that has overrun. Most of it goes fine. The question only ever gets asked on the day it does not, and by then the answer is whatever you happened to write down.
Signing contractors in is part of the kiosk platform, from £150 a month plus VAT. RAMS and permits are the Permit to Work module, and printed badges the badge module, £150 each.
What the HSE describes
Five steps, and a kiosk only touches two of them
HSE guidance on managing contractors sets out five steps. It is worth reading them in order, because two of them happen long before anyone arrives and no software helps with those at all. We would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
- Planning. Define the job and its hazards before anybody quotes for it. Nothing to do with reception, and the step most often skipped.
- Choosing a contractor. Competence, insurance, training records and RAMS checked before they are on the calendar. A procurement decision, made in an office.
- Contractors working on site. Induction, site rules, and the moment they are actually allowed to start work. This is the step that happens at your door, and it is the one a kiosk changes.On the kiosk
- Keeping a check. Knowing who is on site, where, and whether the conditions you set still hold. A kiosk answers the first of those three and leaves the other two to you.On the kiosk
- Reviewing the work. What happened, what nearly happened, and what you would do differently. Impossible to do honestly without a record to review.
Following that guidance is not compulsory in itself — you are free to achieve the same result another way. Having nothing in its place is the position you do not want to be in.
At the door
What actually happens when a contractor arrives
The same iPad your visitors use. It takes about ninety seconds and it produces four things you did not have before. Two come with the platform and two are optional modules, and each says which.
Platform
Signed in against a host, your rules accepted by name
A contractor signs in on the iPad as any visitor does: name, company, who they are working for, and a registration if they have driven in. Your site rules are on screen, PPE, speed limits, no-go areas, permit rules, and nobody signs in without accepting them. The record keeps who, when, their host and the exact wording they accepted.
Platform
On the roll call from the moment they arrive
A contractor who signed in at the kiosk is on the live evacuation list like everyone else, until they sign out. Your marshal is not trying to remember whether the roofers went home at four.
Permit to Work module
RAMS confirmed before work starts
With the permit module, the kiosk gains a Contractor button and the risk assessment and method statement are stored against the permit. The contractor confirms they have read them as part of signing on, against a name and a time, so “I never saw it” stops being a position anyone can take.
Badge module
Badged, so the floor can see
With the badge module, a printed badge with a colour coded lanyard, issued only after a member of staff approves the visit, separates a cleared contractor from an escorted visitor without anyone on the shop floor having to stop and ask which is which.
The day it goes wrong
Four questions, and where the answers come from
After an incident these get asked in roughly this order, by an insurer, by an inspector, or by your own board. Each one is a record or it is a memory.
- Who authorised this work?The member of staff the contractor signed in to see. With the permit module, the named person who authorised and issued the permit, with the time they did it.
- Had they read the method statement?With the permit module, their confirmation against the permit, with their name and the time. Without it, this is a question for your own paperwork, and the induction template on this site is a free place to record it.
- Did they know your site rules?The exact wording that was on screen on the day, and their acceptance of it.
- Who else was in that area?The sign in record for the day, filterable and exportable in a format that opens without our software.
Higher risk work
Hot work, confined space, working at height?
Once the job carries that kind of risk, signing in is not enough and you need a formal permit: authorised up front, issued for the specific job with the controls attached, and signed on by the contractor’s supervisor before a tool is lifted. That is a separate module on the same kiosk, and it has its own page.
Permit to work, explained plainlyContractors on the fire roll callFree contractor induction templateContractors who work across several of your sitesWhat it costs
Being straight with you
What this does not do
- We are not health and safety consultants, CDM advisors or competent persons, and nothing here is safety advice.
- The kiosk does not assess whether a contractor is any good. That decision happens before they arrive and stays with you.
- It does not write your RAMS, and it cannot tell you whether the one you have been handed is adequate.
- For construction work in scope of CDM 2015 there are duties on you that a sign in system has nothing to do with.
What it does is make the record automatic, so the evidence exists whether or not anybody remembered to create it that morning.
Before you ask
The questions people ask about contractor sign in software
Is this contractor management software?
Part of it, and it is worth being exact about which part. Full contractor management suites cover prequalification, insurance and accreditation tracking, and approved supplier lists, all of which happen in an office before anybody arrives. This covers what happens at your door: the contractor signed in against a host, your site rules accepted by name, the fire roll call and an exportable record, and, as two optional modules, RAMS and permits to work, and printed badges. If you need a prequalification database, this is not it. If the gap is proving what happened on the day, it is.
How does a contractor sign in system work?
On the platform a contractor signs in on the same iPad as your visitors: name, company, who they are working for, a registration if they drove in, and your site rules accepted on screen. It takes about ninety seconds. From that moment they are on the live fire roll call, and the visit is stored with times against a named person. A separate Contractor button, with RAMS confirmed as part of signing on, comes with the Permit to Work module, and a printed badge with the badge module.
Do contractors need an app to sign in?
No. They sign in on the kiosk at reception or at the gate, so there is nothing to download and nothing to explain to a subcontractor you will see twice a year. The permit to work module, for higher risk jobs, has the contractor’s supervisor sign on with their own phone from a QR code, again with no app.
Does contractor sign in replace a permit to work?
No. Signing in records that somebody arrived and accepted your rules. A permit authorises a specific high risk job, with its controls, for a set period. Hot work, confined space and working at height need the second as well as the first, and that is a separate module on the same kiosk.
What does it cost?
Signing contractors in, your site rules accepted by name, the roll call and the record are the kiosk platform: £150 a month plus VAT per site, with setup from £599, including the iPad, the stand, support and replacements. Nothing is charged per contractor or per user. There are two optional modules at £150 a month each: Permit to Work, which is where RAMS and permits live, and printed badges with staff approval.
Also asked of sites like yours
The other things somebody may ask you to evidence
Each of these is a page about one standard, one duty or one visitor, written the same way as this one: what it actually asks for, what an iPad at reception records towards it, and where it does not help.
- GDPR and the visitor book
- CMMC physical security
- ISO 27001 visitor access
- AEO visitor access control
- BRCGS visitor control
- Fire roll call
- HSE inspection records
- ISO 45001 contractor control
- Sign in sheet template
- Visitor health questionnaire template
- Contractor induction template
- Permit to work template
- Hot work permit template
- Fire drill record template
Next step
Tell us how contractors get onto your site today
Fifteen minutes on the phone. How many trades a week, how many gates, and what you would need to be able to show after an incident. We will tell you straight whether this is worth your time.
Book a 15 minute callNo site visit needed and nothing to install. If it is not a fit we will say so on the call.
Would rather email? [email protected]
Not the person who signs it off? Send them the one page business case