Guidelines for hiring contractors and sub-contractors

Gary Plant, Managing Director for Altius VA discusses the guidelines for ensuring that work is carried out properly- whether by contractor or sub-contractor.

This means, that you carry overall responsibility for any mistakes, problems, or developments in a project. Contractors and sub-contractors must adhere to your high standards while excelling in the work that you need done in terms of quality, credibility and liability.

Therefore, Gary provided ten guidelines to simplify and de-risk the hiring process.

1. Ask for evidence of license, and ongoing training

If you’re a contractor appointing a sub-contractor, it’s your responsibility to make sure that whoever is working for you is able to work safely and has the accreditations needed. You should request evidence of ongoing training to be sure that the contractor is keeping their skills up to date and up to standard.

2. Request references

You should seek references to verify the information that you have been provided with by the contractor or sub-contractor to see if they can deliver.

3. Check insurance

Ensure that contractors and sub-contractors have the right level of in-date insurance. In the case of ‘labour only’ contractors, you should make sure that your own employer’s liability insurance will cover the work they’re going to do for you.

4. Check health and safety credentials

In addition to providing a working environment that provides low risk to the health and safety of your contractors and sub-contractors, they also should be trained to carry out relevant health and safety assessments and follow procedures.

5. Find out who is doing the work

You should find out whether the contractor you’re hiring will do the work themselves or whether they will be hiring a sub-contractor. If so, you need full visibility of your contractor’s hiring and onboarding process to ensure that it reflects your standards and won’t expose you to risk.

6. Understand your responsibilities

You need to define exactly what your responsibilities and deliverables are to the contractor – you have to understand what the contractor is expecting from you to do their job. It’s important to have a robust strategy and framework in place that sets out exactly what is expected and what the timeframe is.

7. Get your contract signed

The contract should cover costs, brands of materials used, approximate start and finish dates, a complete set of drawings with written specifications, deliverables expected from each party and responsibilities.

8. Select a point of contact

You should have one single point of contact per project and ensure that lines of communication are always open.

9. Agree KPIs

Monitoring the work carried out by contractors/sub-contractors is a vital part of any project. To ensure that your high standards are achieved, and that the project is kept on the right track, agreeing and implementing KPIs to monitor outcomes is necessary.

10. Remain compliant

Using modern software-based compliance systems can make this process easier and highlight lapses in compliance, which are so often a problem.

You can download the Altius VA guide to Managing Subcontractor compliance here.

Contact:

Phone: 01332 960320
Email: enquiries@altiusva.com

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