Contractor Communication Challenges

Almost all facilities teams will leverage contractors and tradespeople as a part of regular operations. Whether your contractors and trades are internal, or external, there’s a number of communications that need to happen to facilitate the engagement.

Working efficiently with contractors and trades is an important part of efficient facilities management. There is a significant amount of information that must be traded between the facilities team and the contractors to fulfil compliance obligations; and more still to ensure the engagement is as efficient as possible.

What can go wrong? 

Clunky compliance processes

Before a contractor steps foot on site, there must be a record of their relevant accreditations, licences, and insurances. Continual back and forth trying to get the required documentation is inefficient, and frustrating for both parties. Missing information is at best annoying, and at worse, can be dangerous or pose a threat to compliance.

Wasted work hours

For the contractors, it can be frustrating when key information required to do the work isn’t provided in a timely manner. Contractors need to know exactly what work is required and what the expectations are around that work. They need to know what exactly they’re solving, where the job is, how to get there, and if there are any permits or inductions required.

With the vast amount of information required for contractors, it can be easy to under-deliver, or provide piecemeal information that becomes difficult to access.

Key details missing

In order to maintain comprehensive work histories, facilities teams will require contractors and trades to record information about the work they’re doing. These records are important for asset management and can also support efficiencies in future contractor engagements.

Knowing what work was previously done on an asset or job and making this information available to those doing the work, can save you valuable time and money.

Improving communications for contractors and trades

Streamline compliance processes

Clear communication around information requirements is key to improving communications with contractors and trades. Whether contractors and trades are external contractors, or in house, you’ll need comprehensive records of licences, insurances and accreditations, and expiry dates of these. 

FMI Works allows contractors to upload their own documentation to the platform, making it clear what information is required. Additionally, each time work is assigned to that contractor, the system can check for the required documentation, negating the need to chase it up everytime.

Saving those details in a secure platform, against the relevant contractor can greatly improve the availability of the information. This is important to fulfil the requirements of relevant compliance bodies and insurers.

Proactively create infomation packages

When coming on site, contractors and trades will require specific information to conduct the work as safely and efficiently as possible. If there are known hazards associated with certain assets or locations, this information needs to be provided before anyone arrives on site.

Proactively supplying information such as sitemaps, maintenance histories, building access, parking details, and important phone numbers can save time and money. For contractors charging by the hour, this information helps them get to the job as quickly as possible.

When these standard details are saved in information packages in a dedicated FM platform, they can be linked to the work order alongside details such as work histories and any photos. Having these information packages loaded into the platform means they don’t need to be remembered and recreated every time.

Simplify reporting processes

Processes around the recording of work histories need to be straightforward and convenient to maintain compliance with those processes. While having comprehensive work histories is critical for facilities teams, it can be perceived as a low value activity for the contractor.

Contractors should be able to quickly record the work from their mobile as soon as the work is completed, while it’s front of mind. By reducing the complexity and effort for the contractor, it will seem like less of a burden, which typically improves compliance with the process.