ISOsafe's top tips for managing your subcontractors

Every business owner expects their subcontractors to uphold the same standards as their staff, but maintaining subcontractor compliance onsite is another challenge altogether.
Many businesses rely on subcontractors to meet high-demand or fill a geographic need. When you hire subcontractors, they represent your company, so it’s important to make sure they have the same information and guidelines as your staff.
Having in place carefully considered and planned agreements are a must for any business looking to better manage their subcontractors. ISOsafe’s simple and straightforward contractor management system allows business owners to manage multiple subcontractors, across all projects. ISOsafe’s solution will help your project managers identify, engage and share feedback on subcontractors. 

Why subcontractor compliance matters:
• It’s your responsibility to make sure your subcontractors carry out work in line with Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety Laws
• Aside from legal requirements and safety codes, you want to make sure your subcontractors maintain the high company standards you’ve set for your staff.
• You set Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for a reason and it’s your responsibility to communicate those customer agreements and expectations to your subcontractors.
• If you enforce strong standards across your organisation and the subcontractors you work with, you’ll prove yourself as a reliable, trustworthy company to work with, helping you attract new business.

It’s clear there are many reasons to enforce compliance across your team of subcontractors, but how do you actually do it? Here are 5 strategies, from ISOsafe’s contractor management system:
• Quality Control
One way to verify subcontractors are meeting your company’s standards is to send project managers into the field to verify jobs by inspecting the subcontractor’s work. Depending on your organisational structure, you may find that instead of sending project managers into the field to check subcontractors’ work, you could have customers sign off on the subcontractor’s job form, affirming they were there and did the job to the customer’s satisfaction. 
• Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Not only does this help you see whether your customers are happy with the subcontractors’ work, it also gives you (and the subcontractor concerned) data over time to guide how you improve customer satisfaction. 
• Customised Inspection Forms
To standardise the inspection process, you could have subcontractors complete an inspection form onsite to check their compliance and ensure they’re living up to company standards. This may be accompanied with photographic evidence. 

Consistent and positive customer experience is pivotal to your business’ growth. 
Not only do you want to make sure your subcontractors are meeting safety codes and legal service requirements, you also want to ensure your customers each receive the same quality experience every time they work with you. If your subcontractors are under performing or failing to take advantage of their time onsite, it reflects poorly on your company. 

Customer satisfaction is arguably the most important measurement of a strong service organisation. By demanding consistent, quality service from subcontractors by holding them accountable, you’ll make sure you exceed customer expectations every time instead of just hoping your team of subcontractors follows your guidelines.