Contractor Management Model

About Cognibox

Supply chain compliance remains one of the major challenges that companies are facing. All the organizations, large and small, with whom we work, aim for the highest standards. That’s why they rely on the experience and expertise of more than 100 professionals who have been part of the Cognibox team for over 40 years.

As a leader in risk management and contractor compliance, Cognibox offers one of the most complete and flexible solutions on the market. More than 250 customers in North America use Cognibox to manage outsourcing risks specific to their business sector. This solution combines expertise, software, training and a complete outsourcing service, including administrative support.

The Cognibox community now has more than 200,000 members – contractors and contractors’ employees – which allows client corporations to work with the most efficient contractors and suppliers in their industry, in the fields of occupational health and safety, the environment, sustainable development, quality and regulatory compliance.

Objectives for using a contractor management system:

Avoid any injury at work, day after day.
Work to eliminate all occupational diseases and incidents through effective supervision of contractors’ employees.
Promote health and safety objectives in the design, planning, pre-training, and execution of both internal and external work.
Strengthen contractors’ good practices and identify weaknesses in order to implement a continuous action plan.
Protect the environment from damage caused by negligence.
Work with the best companies and meet standards.
Audits - ensuring the protection of companies.
Protect the company’s reputation by avoiding accidents.

Use of Cognibox by the different departments

Departments
General Information

Client Corporation

Procurement

Project Manager

OHS Advisor

Security Guard

Environmental Manager

Contractor's Project Manager

The client corporation is responsible for ensuring that contractors have the necessary skills to work safely on their site. For this reason, the client corporation has put in place several tools within Cognibox to ensure the compliance of its contractors, including a questionnaire and the following process.

The role of the contract administrator is to ensure that the contractor selected to do the work meets the minimum criteria of the client corporation’s insurance requirements and that the contractor has an adequate health and safety ratio. To do this, the administrator checks in Cognibox that the contractor has the status “qualified” and clicks on the “information” tab to see the contractor’s ratios. If the contractor has not yet been created in the system, the administrator must ask the Cognibox account manager for the contractor to be invited to qualify. The administrator also works with other departments to ensure that contractors are qualified for the duration of the work. If anything out of the ordinary happens, he may have to make decisions about insurance “under analysis”.

The administrator (procurement) of the contract is responsible for:

Requiring contractors to be members of Cognibox: initially from a list provided by the buyers, from the list of contractors for whom purchase orders have been issued in the last year and then on an ongoing basis when new contractors are invited to work for the company. The OPERATIONS will also have to share information on the use of new suppliers;
Consulting Cognibox to ensure that the contractor to whom contracts are awarded is qualified;

Contacting the HSE manager for any problematic situation;
Defining the level of insurance required for contractors and ensure that the certificate is up to date in Cognibox (no refused status);

Making decisions on the insurance certificates that are “under analysis”;

Making sure that you select the contractors with the best health and safety ratios (information tab).

The project manager is responsible for the smooth running of the work on the client’s sites for contractors working in his department. He must ensure that they are qualified in Cognibox and that their employees have received the necessary training to carry out the work, using the Cognibox “Employee” module or the “Analysis and Tasks” module, if applicable. If necessary, he evaluates the work performed at the end of the contract using the “Performance” module.

The project manager is responsible for:

Making sure the contractor is compliant with the contractual requirements and take corrective action in cases of non-compliance;
Notifying the contractor of any hazards on the site that could affect their work;
Ensure that all contractors who come to work on the sites are qualified for the duration of the work;

Contact the HSE manager if anomalies are detected for a contractor;
Conduct ongoing audits to ensure that contractor's employees performing work have all the skills and training required to do so;
Creating tasks, if necessary, according to the specific needs of the work to be done;
Ensuring, if required, that the contractor's employees are assigned to a task before coming to the sites;
Evaluating the work at the end of the contract using an evaluation questionnaire (see PE module).

The OHS advisor must ensure that contractors who come on sites comply with the criteria established in the questionnaire and the attached documents. If necessary, he contacts the Cognibox account manager to obtain more information on the elements “under analysis” on which he must take a decision. He also ensures that project managers have the necessary information to manage contractors who have to visit the site.

The OHS Advisor/Manager is responsible for:

Evaluating contractor pre-qualification documents and questions, and ranking contractors;
Ensuring that all contractors who come to work on the sites are qualified for the duration of the work;

Ensuring that safety rules are followed by employees;
Verifying that internal procedures are followed by project managers;
Conducting continuous compliance audits of contractors;
Contacting the Cognibox account manager for any problematic situation;
Verifying the tasks created by project managers, if any, to ensure that the requirements are consistent with the work to be done.

The security guard shall ensure that only contractors who are qualified and, where applicable, have completed the necessary induction training are allowed in. If necessary, he contacts the project manager or OHS advisor to inform them of any blocked contractors.

The security guard is responsible for:

Verifying that contractors are qualified before entering the site;

Verifying that contractors have completed the induction training, if applicable.

The environmental manager is responsible for:

Checking in Cognibox the environmental questions and documents that have been analyzed for problematic contractors;
Define the applicable environmental rules and ensure that they are communicated to contractors.

The contractor’s project manager is responsible for:

Complying with employee training requirements as identified by the client corporation's project manager in the task created;
Complying with the minimum insurance requirements requested by the client;
Completing and keeping up to date his questionnaire and documents;
Ensuring that contractor’s employees that go on-site have valid and up-to-date training;
Keeping the contact person and company information up to date;
Notifying the client of any major changes that would affect the work performed on the client's premises (major accidents, environmental accidents, company sale/bankruptcy, etc.).

Good practices to be promoted before and during the work

Module Guide

Summary of the responsibilities by modules

Summary of Changes

Contractor Management Flowchart

Cognibox Statuses

Values to be promoted within the organization

Good practices:

Pre-Bid Meeting - The contractor must consider security in his pre-bid planning process, in the same way as the other aspects to be considered at this stage when preparing the bid package.
Pre-Contract Award Planning - Written pre-work planning is one of the most important preliminary steps in achieving an accident-free work environment. At this stage, the contract authority must ensure that safety plans, equipment, tools, machinery and personal protective items fully comply with the applicable rules and regulations. The Cognibox AT module keeps track and simplifies the management of this planning.
Safety Plan - The safety plan must include information on how to manage the project to maintain a safe work environment. Pre-work planning will be used to evaluate the safety plan and make additions or changes.
Accident Reporting and Investigation Program - This program plays an essential role in ensuring the identification, assessment and elimination of potential hazards in the workplace. This program should be discussed at the pre-work meeting and should be applied throughout the project.
Emergency Service Contact List - The list of people to call must indicate which emergency service and who to call in the event of an injury or hazardous situation; this list must be displayed, if applicable. Training exercises simulating an emergency situation are an effective way to communicate the terms of the plan.
Emergency Response Plan - The workplace must develop a written emergency response plan for potential emergencies. This plan describes actions to be taken in the event of a fire/explosion, tornado/hurricane, bomb threat, chemical spill, earthquake, flood and other local disasters, as appropriate. The response plan should also indicate how these various hazards will be communicated to employees on site. The local emergency service provider should be invited on the site to review the emergency response plan.
Site Plan (for security purposes) - A site plan must be developed and displayed at various locations. This plan should include all entrances and exits, emergency assembly points, AED locations, washrooms and first aid kit locations.

Learn more about the different modules of Cognibox with our complete Guide :

To learn more about using these modules, refer to the user guides available in the “Help and Documentation” section of the platform.

QF module – Contractors qualification

EM module – Employees conformity

AT module – Analysis and Tasks

PE Module – Performance

Find a summary of all Cognibox’s qualification status in the “Help and documentation” tab of the portal.

Consideration - No work, no matter how important or urgent, can justify shortcuts in terms of safety.
Leadership - Leading by example sends a stronger message than any procedure.
Responsibility - The safety of oneself and others is rooted in the individual actions of each person.
Collaboration - Safety is a responsibility shared by all.

Qualification process

Invitation of a contractor to the Cognibox system

File follow-up by Cognibox

EM Module

Monitoring of the insurance certificate and WSIB certificate

Qualification maintenance

Renewal

The client corporation (Procurement/HSE) or the contractor, in certain cases, sends a request to the Cognibox account manager to qualify a new contractor. Click here to view the contractor registration page.

Two scenarios are possible:

The entrepreneur is not already a Cognibox member:

Sending the invitation to subscribe. Note that payment must be done before the contractor can have access to the file. In some cases, approval for the addition of new contractors must be given by the client corporation.
Adding the questionnaire to the contractor’s file.
Beginning of the qualification process.

The entrepreneur is already a Cognibox member. (Note that there is no additional charge to add a customer to an existing account if he is already on the standard price list.) :

Invitation sent to the contractor to qualify.
Beginning of the qualification process.

The contractor is not already a Cognibox member.

Following the invitation sent by the Cognibox account manager, the contractor receives an automatic email from the system informing him that he must qualify for his client.
Then, the Cognibox agent in charge of the file contacts the contractor (email + call) to let him know that the client corporation wants him to be qualified.
The contractor has a maximum of four (4) follow-ups to subscribe. If it is still not done after these four (4) follow-ups, his status will be set to “Escalation” by the agent. He will then receive an email from the system notifying him of the discontinuing of the follow-ups and informing him that he will no longer be contacted by his agent.
When the contractor subscribes, he becomes a Cognibox member.

If the entrepreneur mentions that he does not want to subscribe, the agent sets the status to “Escalation” so that the client corporation can see it in his weekly report sent by his Cognibox account manager;

The contractor is already a Cognibox member

The agent in charge of the file calls the contractor each week to help him qualify for up to seven (7) follow-ups;

If the contractor is still not qualified after these seven (7) follow-ups, which are equivalent to approximately seven (7) weeks, the contractor’s status is set to “Escalation” and the client corporation is informed through the report. The contractor then receives an email notifying him of the discontinuing of the follow-ups and that he must contact his Cognibox agent to report the completion of the file.
Once the file is completed, the agent validates it (note that the pending status (Orange) means that the question or document has not yet been verified by the agent assign to the file);

a) If everything meets the criteria of the client corporation, the contractor is qualified;
b) If the answers or documents do not meet the criteria, the agent will refuse these questions or documents (Red);
c) If a document has expired (Blue), the contractor will have to reissue it to acquire the qualification;
d) If you wish to be informed of components that deviate from the established standards, they can be analyzed (Purple) and transmitted to the client corporation through the report sent each week by the Cognibox account manager for decision-making.

a) The contractor sends the employee’s full name, date of birth, email and personal information sharing form to documents@cognibox.com;

b) All employee training must be sent to documents@cognibox.com to be added to their profile. There is a 72 business hour delay for processing the information. Note that if the employee takes online training offered through Cognibox, his or her file will automatically be updated upon successful completion of the training. For training given by another firm, proof of training or a list of attendance is required to update the employee’s file.

c) If the contractor shares his information, the client corporation will have access to the employee’s profile.

Note that the contractor now has the ability to create his own employees in the system to assign trainings to them, but he still needs to contact documents@cognibox.com and follow the steps to register an employee so that the employee is visible to the client corporation.

Once the contractor is qualified, the Cognibox agent will follow the insurance certificate or WSIB clearance if it is included in the client corporation’s contract.

a) The system sends automated reminders to the contractor from the 30th day before the documents expire until the expiry date or until new documents are submitted. No follow-up reminders are done by the qualification agent on expiring documents. The agent only follows up on documents that have been issued, to inform the contractor if they are not in compliance or to validate them.

b) If the insurance certificate has expired, the contractor has two weeks to issue a new one. If within these two weeks he provides a new certificate, but it does not comply, he retains his qualification but the insurance certificate is refused. The agent will inform him of the reasons for the refusal by email.

c) If the contractor’s certificate is not in compliant two weeks after its expiry, the contractor will be disqualified (status refused) for its non-compliant document. He will have to issue a valid and complete certificate to regain his qualification. The agent then stops the follow-ups.

d) The client corporation must follow up with the contractor to issue a valid certificate if he is not qualified and must enter their sites.

Note that at all times, when reissuing an insurance certificate from a company that was qualified, the agent in charge of the file will verify the certificate, even after it has expired or been reissued several times. As soon as a certificate is issued, the agent is notified and has 72 hours to validate or refuse it.

a) One month before the end of the qualification, the follow-up process starts again to give the contractor time to complete the elements that need to be updated to keep his qualification.

b) As with the qualification process, the agent will follow up with the contractor to update his file.

c) In contrast to the qualification, the agent will do only five (5) follow-ups with the contractor to help him maintain his qualification. After which, the contractor will receive the status “Escalation” so that the client corporation can see it in his report sent by the Cognibox account manager.

When the contractor is marked “Suspended”, “Unpaid” or “Non-Member”, the client corporation does not have access to the contractor’s account.

The contractor receives an email thirty (30) days, fourteen (14) days, seven (7) days before his renewal, and the day his subscription expires.

The contractor renews:

The qualification status (qualified, expired, pending, refused or conditional) is once again visible to the client corporation.

The contractor does not renew:

a) If the contractor contacts his Cognibox’s agent and tells him/her that he does not want to renew, his account will become “Non-Member”.

b) If the contractor does not contact his agent, his account will remain “Suspended” until payment is made.

c) The account manager will let the client corporation know that the contractor refuses to renew.