The use of contractors and sub-contractors by construction companies is a hugely advantageous and common practice within the industry worldwide.

Contractors have the benefit of providing an element of flexibility, especially when required to complete specialist tasks.

Assistance from professional resources such as contractors will provide core members of staff the ability to focus on primary operations that will allow for continued growth.

Furthermore, qualified and veteran contractors can provide a facet of experience that may not currently exist within the organisation.

Many successful parent companies may have a long-standing relationship with contractors that have, over time, established a professional rapport and a strong sense of trust. Even in cases such as this, the management of contractors and the administrative costs associated with dealing with them can cause major problems for all involved.

1. Reduce the Need for Administrative Resources

The introduction of effective contractor management software has the potential to reduce administration costs relating to contracts and permissions by somewhere between 25-30%.

This level of increased efficiency is achieved by merely removing the need for paper-based processes.

The on boarding process and level of resources required to maintain standards with contractors can negatively impact a project’s bottom line.

Parent companies can get wrapped up in a constant flow of administrative work just to achieve a minimum level of success.

FlexManager provides contractors with the relevant permissions so they can undertake and complete much of this administration work themselves.

By granting contractors access to self-registration the parent company can allocate time and resources more efficiently with the aim to improve operational excellence.

2. Create a Central Storage Location for Documentation

Organisations without a central and unified storage system for contracts, permits, training records, and safety procedures are prone to long operational delays that can have a negative impact on planned budgets and schedules.

Document issues can cause an estimated 21% loss in productivity from employees and contractors.

88% of IT leaders believe that having a centralised, singular SaaS management solution for all business sectors internally would offer increased focus on strategic initiatives rather than managing various disconnected applications.

The implementation of effective document management software has the potential to reduce errors, speed up processes, and increase overall visibility by 35%, allowing for more informed decision-making.

FlexManager’s ‘external company portal and its related module provides a singular location for all relevant contractor certificates and credentials to allow your company to increase efficiency and visibility while assisting in easily reaching its compliance targets.

FlexManager’s award-winning software notifies employers of information such as expiration dates on training records and provides the capacity to review and add comments that will speed up processes. Furthermore, if documents are rejected or out of date the system will refuse contractors in question access to the site until the issue has been resolved. This not only keeps employers well-informed of crucial elements of operations but places liability on the contractor as opposed to your organisation.

3. Standardise Inductions

Ensuring sub-contractors are up to speed and certified on all relevant compliance matters can be a painstaking and difficult task.

60% of all serious injuries that occur on-site or in a workplace are suffered by employees who have not yet undergone sufficient safety inductions.

Contractors of all kinds are required by law to receive health and safety inductions before they ever set foot on site.

The primary purpose of an induction course is to provide contractors with all the necessary knowledge to promote safety compliance for themselves and those around them.

Effective safety inductions have the added benefits of:

• Familiarising employees with their workplace and their individual responsibilities and tasks
• Introduce contractors to company policy and procedures
• Introduction of contractors to location and environment
• Reduce the possibility of an injury occurring on site

The use of FlexManager’s induction module can provide a whole and comprehensive location to organise and control all the information needed to establish that strong induction measures are firmly in place.

FlexManager’s singular software allows parent companies the ability to have a complete overview of all certifications, qualifications, and dates of previous safety inductions for all new and pre-existing contractors. Thus, minimising the chance of incidents occurring and removing liability from the company.

4. Effectively Maintain Budgets

Once a project exceeds its budgetary confinements it can be difficult to understand where the problems are emerging. This issue can be drastically amplified when multiple contracted parties are involved.

On average construction projects exceed their planned budget by 16%.

The primary cause of which include:

• Project Design Errors
• Inaccurate Estimations
• Over Ordering

With the collection of FlexManager’s Contractor Management focused modules, projects can document and analyse where the financial excesses are occurring.

For example, with its newly updated Stock Management modules a company can easily understand where over-ordering may be taking place allowing them to act in real-time and approach the problem effectively.

Assessing the causes of cost overtures with FlexManager will allow for correct project planning to avoid overspending while also maintaining a healthy budget. The best example of this is FlexManager’s Time Management module that auto-logs time against tasks including:

• Inspections
• Audits
• Training

Creating insightful data that can be effectively utilised for forecasting and planning going forward.

5. Provide Detailed Analytics

The construction industry by nature has many challenges such as under performance, and poor project or time management, with very few using real-time data and analytics to remedy the problems.

A recent study undertaken by the Associated General Contractors (AGC) found that an estimated 72% of projects have taken longer than initially planned and budgeted for.

A shockingly low 25% of projects came within 10% of their original deadline in the past three years.

This common problem results in 44% of firms over-estimating their proposed schedule when applying for tenders.

This leads to many very suitable and experienced companies being outbid by applicants willing to oversell themselves and later under perform or renege on their promises.

Both under and over-predicting project planning are symptoms of poor performance analytics by parent companies.

Many factors contribute to a firm having a lack of understanding in relation to capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, and shortcomings. A firm with low self-awareness is oblivious to its competitive edge in the market.

The implementation of effective contractor management software, such as FlexManager, will inform your organisation of all areas of inefficiencies among its external employees allowing it to make quick and decisive adjustments. This provides the necessary tools to accurately determine the length and cost of a proposed project that your company may rightly deserve.

For this reason, establishing criteria for performance reviews will allow your company to be cognisant of which contractors are operating to the intended standards of the organisation.

A unique feature of FlexManager is its ability to create internal scoring based on criteria, known as Supplier ‘Pre-qual’, set by your organisation that will allow you to assign tasks to contractors with the most relevant experience and skill sets.

Conclusion

With FlexManager’s Contractor Management modules, your company can learn precisely how contractors perform. This will not only allow for the opportunity to make corrections to the current processes but will also provide factual data for which future decisions can be made.

Having a breakdown of all project elements will grant companies with informed statistics on where improvements need to be made and define what key points contribute to their USP, making for a better and more fine-tuned organisation.

With FlexManager’s award-winning software, your company can configure its modules and settings to allow your organisation to set and meet corporate governance targets, creating a positive culture of compliance. This will permit your company to continue to grow and focus on its operational excellence.