ABSTRACT

Given the extent to which organisations in heavy industries rely on contractors to accomplish critical work tasks while maintaining safe operations, it is important to identify ways in which contractors can be better integrated into the workforce with the goal of improving not only their own safety performance but also the safety outcomes for the entire operation. To accomplish this, we must consider how well-researched and understood concepts such as safety climate might function differently when contractors (either contractor organisations or individual contractor employees) are involved. With this objective, this chapter describes the unique characteristics of the organisational social context that contractors work within along with the particular challenges associated with integrating contractors into a client organisation and its established workgroups. The safety implications of this contractor work reality are explored, with strategies to achieve exemplary contractor safety management offered within the context of psychological best practices for workplace safety.