Placing your company’s OHS management into the wrong hands can lead to accident’s resulting in injury and/or property damage, inconvenient and avoidable work stoppages and contract delays where clients expect a high level of compliance from contractors. It pays to do your due diligence when choosing an OHS consultancy. Within this article we discuss 4 critical components in choosing the right OHS consultant for your business.
1. Reputation & Quality of Work
Outsourcing your OHS management may have a lot of benefits, but it can also be a significant risk if not put into the right hands. You want an OHS consultancy whom can deliver what’s required with a high level of quality and whom you can trust and establish a long term relationship with. The types of questions you may want to ask include:
- Do they have any solid client references from other similar sized clients like you?
- What success stories can they share?
- What industries do they get majority of their business from?
- What areas do they specialise in?
2. Customer Service & Support
Customer service during the purchase phase is paramount and all good professional service providers will assist in the planning, development, training, trouble shooting, maintenance and upgrading of a service. You should expect to receive a detailed proposal in writing for large jobs or a quotation in writing for smaller jobs. The types of questions that should be answered in the proposal/quotation prior to project completion include:
- Job Delivery Time frame
- Fixed Fee Guarantee
- Professional Indemnity & Insurance
- Confidentiality
- Conflicts of Interest
- Exclusions
- Availability
3. Pricing & Fee Structures
In the OHS consulting services industry it is common place for OHS service providers to charge ‘day rates’ without giving an accurate assessment of how long (or short) a job might be. This ‘open cheque book’ type of fee structure has turned many businesses away from using OHS consultants in the past as they experienced job over runs and often pay far in excess that what was originally forecast. The types of questions you may want to ask include:
- Do you provide a fixed all inclusive job proposal/quotation?
- Can you set and guarantee a job completion date?
- Do you take on jobs under $500 in value?
4. Responsiveness & Dependability
Business moves fast. With that you need to have professional service providers such as accountants, IT and finance brokers to be both responsive and dependable. OHS consulting is no different and you need a provider that can solve your issue or assist your efforts when the time arises in the quality expected from a professional service provider.
Posted by: Cathal Uniacke – cathal@custodiansafety.com.au