No matter what your approach is to managing health and safety for your business, it's important to make sure that you have the right processes and culture in place to keep everyone safe on-site and to fulfil your legal obligations.
This guide will provide you with practical instructions utilising the HazardCo system to help manage your construction project's health and safety in a simple and effective way.
Contractor Management
Ensuring everyone stays safe on-site is crucial. When using contractors for a project, it's important to assess their approach to health and safety. You can do this by gathering basic health and safety information from them as part of your contractor management process. Additionally, establish a routine for checking on them regularly throughout the project to ensure they're working safely.
Key areas to review as part of assessing your contractor's health and safety practices include incident and emergency management, worker engagement and participation, hazard identification and risk management, machinery and equipment safety, employee health and safety competencies and training, as well as monitoring and review processes.
Managing multiple contractors can be challenging, but using the HazardCo automated contractor management system reduces time and effort. Learn more about it here.
Setting up your Project
With HazardCo it's easy to set up your site by creating a project in the Hub, here’s how:
Provide specific site address details
Add in general information about the project
Identify the emergency procedures that will be put in place on-site
Identify the site hazards and controls that will be used to manage the risks
Choose the contractors that you will be using for the project
The construction phase plan will be sent automatically to those involved and will advise them to use the site-specific QR code to complete a Site Induction when they arrive on-site and scan in/out each day.
Remember before the project starts, set up site fencing, emergency equipment, toilets, handwashing facilities, and your HazardCo Hazard Board with the site-specific QR code. Remember that anybody who scans onto site with your HazardCo Project Plus QR code will gain full access to the HazardCo App, and all reports will be instantly shared with you via the HazardCo Hub.
During your project:
Update the HazardCo Hazard Board with any new hazards on-site, and encourage contractors to do the same too.
Using the site-specific QR Code on the Hazard Board, get your workers and any visitors to complete a digital site induction when they arrive on-site for the first time and scan in/out of site each day.
Workers should complete a Risk Assessment on the HazardCo App before starting work to make sure their work area is safe and any new hazards are identified.
Monitor works occurring on-site using the Site Review feature on the HazardCo App.
Get your workers to use the RAMS feature on the HazardCo App to determine what controls they need to put in place for the work. Ensure everyone involved is consulted during the preparation of the RAMS and have read, understood, and will follow the directions provided.
Share and capture what's happening on site, and upcoming works with workers through the Toolbox Meeting feature on the HazardCo App.
Record incidents on-site using the HazardCo App. Any incident, illness, or near-miss can be recorded. Check out the HazardCo Hub for your Incident Register.
Contact our Advisory team anytime at advisory@hazardco.com for health and safety advice.
Health and Safety Evidence
Documentation is a key way of showing that health and safety is active on-site and provides evidence in areas like incident investigations and learnings that are shared
from these. Use the HazardCo tools on the App and Hub for all your health and safety needs.
What documentation should you have available as a builder?
Using the HazardCo App, we recommend minimum and good practice benchmarking targets for your Health and Safety documentation on-site:
Site Review - Minimum - 2 per month / Good practice - 4 per month
Toolbox Meeting - Minimum - 2 per month / Good practice - 4 per month or when high-risk work is planned
RAMS - For any high-risk work that occurs
Incident Report - As occurs
Builder records available from the Hub:
Construction Phase Plan, which includes health and safety information about each project
Inductions and scan in/out for each project
Health and safety reports - See benchmarking for contractor documentation
Incident Register
What documentation should your contractor be providing when working on your project?
Using the HazardCo App we recommend minimum and good practice benchmarking targets for your health and safety documentation on-site:
Risk Assessment - Minimum - 1 per week / Good practice - 1 per day
Toolbox Meeting - Minimum - 2 per month / Good practice - 4 per month or when high-risk work is planned
RAMS - For any high-risk work that occurs
Incident Report - As occurs
Remember all these reports will be viewable on your HazardCo Hub when completed through the HazardCo App.
Don’t forget, as part of your membership, you can talk to the HazardCo team at info@hazardco.com for all your health and safety needs.