Altius’ Managing Director Gary Plant hosted a webinar in January 2016 to give viewers five top tips for managing contractors more effectively. The 25-minute webinar also hosted questions and queries from viewers on the biggest challenges they face, and how they can overcome them. Here’s just some of the key takeaways from the webinar:
As well as having a requirement in place for your sub-contractor to complete the work you require, you should also have requirements on health and safety aspects too. For example, any builder working above 3 metres should have the necessary training, equipment and insurance to carry out the job.
After working on the requirements of the job, finding the right contractors who are capable of doing the job should be your next step. It’s not enough to simply ‘take their word’ if they say they can do the job – if something goes wrong, it is you that will be in trouble. Examples of evidence could include insurance documentation or references from other businesses. These two pieces of mind can help to complete the job and negate the risk of working with an untried contractor.
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No assumptions should be made when dealing with sub-contractors. Yes, they can do the job, but in terms of meeting your requirements for health and safety, for example, can they do it? It is not uncommon for contractors to be working to different standards than what you expect, hence, the reason why it is important to check. It is also worth highlighting and communicating the things you don’t want them to do, go, or touch.
After setting out your requirements, how can you assess whether contractors are simply ‘talking-the-talk’ rather than ‘walking-the-walk’? Monitoring compliance is important to measure whether the job is going well. If something is going wrong, it’s obviously too late to do anything about the situation, but you can learn from next time as to how you communicate with your next subcontractor – regardless of whether it was their fault or yours.
Keeping records of sub-contractors and keeping on top of your paperwork is an incredibly difficult job, not to mention the audits you need to keep on top of. Technology now can assist those managing supply chains through the use of automation to ask for updated contractor details. This automation not only gives you more time to concentrate on more important tasks but also helps you to work smarter and only collect the information you need.
As well as covering the five above tips in more detail, the webinar included a Q&A session which can both be viewed for free here. The recorded 25-minute webinar will also give your further tips on assessing contractor capability and monitoring your contractor’s behaviour. Watch the recorded webinar today.
