Contractor Safety Management

A Winner of the Educational Award by the World Safety Organization

Contractor safety management is often seen as nothing more than a subset of general safety management in that no special consideration needs to be given to understanding the difficulties of the contract environment. This leaves contractors endlessly juggling competing and sometimes contradictory demands made by the principal in the name of safety and health. Instead of managing the work in accordance with the contract and the agreed health and safety management plan, contractors find themselves having to cope with moveable, ever-changing expectations about the way that health and safety is supposed to be managed.

Contractor Safety Management explores how the contracting–principal relationship can influence safety outcomes and how a principal's role in "overseeing" the safety performance of its contractors is different from managing safety in its own organization. It brings together perspectives from different disciplines including legal, health and safety management, operational, and contract and procurement management. The editor and chapter authors examine real-life cases, the issues that they present, and the way that safety management was handled.

By sharing lessons across disciplines, the book identifies critical issues in contractor safety management and raises awareness of its complexity and importance. It provides wide-ranging and comprehensive insight into the concerns confronting organizations, managers, and safety managers in contracting relationships. Offering guidance on how critical issues might be addressed, the book uses real-life cases to draw conclusions from successes and failures that can guide future contracting strategies for effectively controlling health and safety risks in a contracting environment.