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Checking your FM provider

Facilities Management (FM) outsource service providers work on the premises of their clients. If they do not adhere to health and safety legislation and the requirements specific to their client’s operations, they can introduce risk into the organisation, impacting its people, assets and reputation. Pro-active creation of a live interface document can bridge health and safety gaps.

Health and safety is a key issue for organisations. Providing a safe and secure environment for employees is not only a priority but is mandated by the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Organisations that outsource functions to an FM provider often entrust management of contractors, sub-contractors and other third-party services in their environment to this provider. Ensuring the outsource service provider complies with local health and safety legislation, procedures and processes must thus be a priority or they may find themselves in contravention of legislation as well as their own health and safety policies and procedures.

Rather than relying on the client to drive the vetting process, forward thinking outsourced FM providers proactively train their on site staff and continuously ensure contractors, sub-contractors and third-party service providers understand and adhere to health and safety requirements.

Pro-active outsourced FM providers may even add value where clients do not have health and safety policies and procedures in place.

Live interface document

The reality of this scenario is that the prospective client organisation, the FM service provider and the contractors engaged by the FM service provider are all employers in their own right even though they may sometimes share the same workplace. As such, they are legally required to provide and maintain systems of work that are safe and without risk to their employees’ health, and provide information, instructions, training and supervision as may be necessary to ensure the health and safety of employees at work.

With the FM service provider’s staff and contractors working in multiple facilities, and the staff of tenants in each facility potentially impacting or being impacted by the actions of these FM resources, the health and safety considerations can become complex – it needn’t be.

To comply with a client’s health and safety requirements, the outsource provider should:

* Determine all applicable health and safety legislation governing its operations within the prospective clients environment and implement measures to ensure regulatory compliance.

* Seek to understand requirements of the client’s health and safety procedures and processes as well as its own processes.

* And the next step is vital: creating an interface document that bridges any gaps between the client and service provider’s processes. This needs to be a live document that is regularly reviewed by both parties to ensure it remains effective in terms of mitigating hazards.

Should the organisation fail to ensure its FM outsourced service provider complies with relevant legislation, they may be faced with an increased number of accidents, incidents or fatalities, as well as damage to the organisation’s reputation. The cost of doing business is also likely to increase as a result of the direct and indirect costs of major accidents. In contrast, actively engaging on the issue with an outsource provider will assist both companies to anticipate the nature and complexity of the risks they may introduce to their businesses, assisting them to manage and mitigate those risks.

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