Contractor Management Checklist: Guide with PDF Template

Contractors

Farm Operations

Free Contractor Management Checklist

Looking for a checklist to get you started? Download our free Contractor Management Checklist

Contractor management can seem like one of the most complex parts of operating an agribusiness. Navigating everything from pre-qualification to inductions is enough to give any owner or operator a headache.

With tools like a contractor management checklist, things can thankfully become much simpler. Read on for our complete guide to taking the stress out of contractor management. For even more of a helping hand, download our complete contractor management checklist PDF template.

Need a digital solution to bolster contractor management in your business? Find out how Onside's contractor management features can help you work more effectively.

What is a contractor management checklist?

A contractor management checklist is a simple list of the requirements for contractor management. It's the ideal way to ensure nothing is overlooked in your contractor management practices.

A good checklist should be end-to-end, covering the entirety of the process from pre-qualification to completion. Every time you begin the process of bringing on a new contractor, you'll have an easy cheat sheet to refer to.

What are the benefits of a contractor management checklist?

Contractor management checklists offer benefits including:

Regulatory compliance: Having a well-researched, comprehensive contractor management checklist is an important tool for ensuring you meet your regulatory obligations when working with contractors.
Improved safety: A contractor management checklist generally involves elements like risk assessments and supervision protocols. Having these elements included in your checklist enhances health and safety when you work with contractors.
Simplified qualification and induction: Qualification and induction processes can be a difficult component of contractor management. A checklist is the perfect way to keep track of what needs to be done in these areas for successful contractor management. It also helps to contribute to satisfactory contract performance.

Contractor management checklist

We've assembled some of the key components that likely should be present in your contractor management checklist. While contractor management can look different from one farming operation to another, these areas are a strong starting point for effectively handling contractors in your business.

Pre-qualification process

The pre-qualification process is one of the most important elements of contractor management. Contractor qualifications must be properly vetted before they begin work on your property.

This section of your contractor management checklist should begin by addressing your farm's processes for contractor qualification. Do you rely on documents being emailed or physically sent to your business?

Alternatively, you might rely on a farm management app like Onside to handle your qualification processes. With these tools, you can automatically collect and house all the documents you need to qualify your contractors.

Some other components of contractor qualification to include in your checklist are:

References: References are an important part of understanding the work that contractors have previously done, and whether they are an appropriate fit for your business.
Certifications: Receiving and reviewing certifications from your contractors is critical to ensure they are able to complete the tasks they have been contracted for. Relevant certifications for you to analyse include machinery operation licensing and safety training certificates.
Insurance: Ensure that contractors have the necessary insurance to work on your property. This ensures that contractors and your farm are protected from liabilities.

Documentation

The need to assess documentation doesn't end when pre-qualification is completed. In your checklist, include a list of other documents that are frequently required for your contractor management processes.

These may include:

Contract agreements: Ensure all your contracts are legally compliant, and that you maintain comprehensive records of all contracts.
Contact details: Make sure you have multiple ways to contact your contractors, including phone numbers, email addresses or by using a farm management app like Onside.
Project-specific documentation: You may also wish to maintain records of specific documentation for your project. This could include project timelines, highly detailed job descriptions and pre-induction information about your farm's operations.
Contractor management policy: Ensure you have an effective contractor management policy in place, and that relevant staff members and contractors are familiar with it.

Risk assessment

Before new contractors come to work on your property, you should generally aim to conduct a specialised risk assessment. This is instrumental to creating a safe working environment for your contractors.

Your contractor-specific risk assessment might cover the following areas:

Lone working: If your contractors will be operating in a lone working context, analyse any associated risks. How will you ensure contractors can be kept safe when no one else is around? To better understand lone working risks, consider creating a lone worker checklist or a lone worker policy.
Machinery use: Determine the risks that machinery may pose to contractors. Which pieces of machinery need to be used in a more restricted way to ensure safety?
Hazardous materials: Identify hazards that chemicals on a farm can cause. You may need to develop guidelines to deal with herbicides, pesticides and more.
Corrective actions: A critical part of any risk assessment is identifying corrective actions for the risk identified. Find measures that can bring risk down to the lowest possible levels and strategies for their implementation.

Compliance

When dealing with contractors on your property, you'll need to ensure you comply with relevant regulations in your jurisdiction.

Health and safety: Regulations exist in Australia and New Zealand outlining the responsibilities of owners and managers to create safe work environments. Familiarise yourself with these regulations and ensure that your work with contractors aligns with them. For more information, check out our guide to creating a farm health and safety policy.
Labour laws: Ensure that your work with contractors is complying with your local labour laws. You may need to consider areas like award rates, maximum working areas and break provisions.
Environmental regulations: Environmental regulations are in place around Australia and New Zealand which restrict the activities of agribusinesses. Ensure that contractors on your property are familiar with relevant environmental regulations and will comply with them during their work.

Monitoring and supervision

For contractor management tasks to run smoothly, you must have effective monitoring and supervision in place. This section of your checklist focuses on creating monitoring and supervision protocols and communicating them to your contractors.

Monitoring systems: Establish digital or analogue systems for monitoring employees. Digital systems such as Onside's check-in features have many advantages, enabling you to automatically track employees when they check in and out of certain areas. This helps to ensure their safety.
Regular check-ins: Create a schedule for periodic check-ins to track contractor progress and address any issues swiftly as they arise. Make sure the nature of these check-ins is clear to contractors as they begin work.
Work inspection: Establish your schedule for inspecting the work that contractors are doing. How will you analyse the work being done from the perspective of safety and of effectiveness?
Reporting: You should have clear reporting procedures in place within your business. Ensure that contractors have a complete understanding of reporting procedures and have the ability to process reports themselves.

Induction

Induction is one of the most critical elements of contractor management. It's your opportunity to bring your contractors up to speed with everything they need to know to work effectively on your farm.

Here's how you can address induction within your contractor management checklist. For more information, check out our complete farm induction checklist.

Company policies: Ensure that contractors understand all of your company policies, from anti-harassment to biosecurity.
Property tour: Provide a site induction tour of your property, focusing on the areas contractors will need to access.
Emergency procedures: Walk contractors through emergency protocols on your farm, including fire safety, relevant first aid procedures and evacuation routes.
Safety procedures: Provide an in-depth overview of safety measures on your farm in areas like chemical handling and livestock. Provide demonstrations and any materials required to effectively communicate protocols.
Tools and equipment: Provide guidance for the use of tools and equipment on your farm for contractors where necessary.
Communication: Establish how communication will work when contractors are on your farm. Who will they report to? How will they receive updates about changes to do with tasks or on the property?

Completion and feedback

Your end-to-end checklist should conclude with processes for the final phase of contractor management, which is the completion of work and two-way feedback.

Final inspection: Conduct a thorough inspection of completed work, ensuring that all the contractual obligations and required standards have been met.
Compliance review: Ensure that all relevant regulations and policies were followed by contractors during the completion of work. You can achieve this through exit interviews and reviewing documentation.
Feedback: Through a two-way feedback process, provide feedback on the work that your contractors have completed while also receiving feedback on your own ways of working. This enables both you and your contractors to improve as a result of your experience working together.
Documentation finalisation: Submit and finalise all documentation like invoices, contracts and compliance reports. Update your records accordingly.

Three ways to simplify contractor management

Once you've successfully worked through your contractor management checklist, here are three more tips for smooth working with contractors on your property:

Review contractor management internally: Be sure to conduct an internal review looking into how effectively managing contractors has gone from the perspective of your team. Were your contractors effective collaborators? Is it necessary to review management processes to achieve better contractor performance in future?
Digitally share safety information: With a farm contractor management app like Onside, you can digitally share key safety information with contractors. You can rest assured that incoming contractors have all the information they need to work safely on your property.
Maintain digital records: Managing all the paperwork that comes along with working with contractors can be a time-consuming headache. Using a digital tool like Onside makes it easy to receive and store the documents and records you need for effective, compliant contractor management.