How do you create one safety process for permanent employees, flexible workers, and subcontractors?

Working with permanent employees, flexible workers, and subcontractors on the same worksite presents a clear challenge: how do you ensure that everyone receives, understands, and follows the same safety information? Each group has a different background, a different working relationship, and sometimes a different language. Yet on the work floor, the same risks apply to everyone.

In this step-by-step guide, you will learn how to set up one cohesive safety process that works for all employee categories, from permanent staff to temporary workers and external contractors. Follow the steps in order and you will end up with a scalable, verifiable process that you can apply within your own organisation.

Map all employee categories

Start with a complete overview of who is active on your worksite. Only once you know which groups are present can you determine which safety information is relevant for whom and how best to deliver it.

1. Make a list of all employee categories working at your locations: permanent employees, agency workers, on-call workers, subcontractors, and any suppliers who are regularly present.
2. Note per category the characteristics that influence the safety process: how long are they present, what tasks do they carry out, what languages do they speak, and through which channel can they be reached?
3. Map which safety risks are most relevant per group, based on the tasks they perform.
4. Identify which groups currently fall outside the existing safety process or are not being reached adequately.

After this step, you will have a clear picture of who you need to reach. This overview forms the basis for everything that follows. Check that every group present on the worksite is also included in the overview. If a category is missing, add it before continuing.

Establish a shared safety foundation for all groups

Now that you know who is active on the work floor, you define the content of the safety process. The aim is a shared foundation that applies to everyone, supplemented with specific information per group or task.

1. Determine which safety information applies to all those present, regardless of their working relationship. Think of emergency procedures, evacuation routes, incident reporting procedures, and the use of personal protective equipment.
2. Compile additional modules for specific groups: subcontractors carrying out high-risk work may need different instructions than employees performing administrative tasks on site.
3. Choose a format that works for all groups. Take into account employees without a company laptop or email address, employees with a different mother tongue, and people who are only present for a short time.
4. Ensure the content aligns with your organisation’s risk inventory and evaluation (RI&E), so that the safety foundation is factually substantiated.

After this step, check whether the shared safety foundation is understandable to someone who is unfamiliar with the organisation. Have a flexible worker or external employee go through the basic instruction and then ask whether the key points are clear. Adjust where necessary.

Set up a scalable onboarding process for safety

With the content established, you now set up the process through which you deliver that information in a structured and scalable way to all employee categories. A good safety onboarding process begins before the first working day and continues until someone has demonstrably acquired the basic knowledge.

Determine the starting point per category

Permanent employees typically go through a more extensive induction programme. For flexible workers and subcontractors, the available time is often shorter. Determine per category when the safety process starts and how much time is available.

1. For permanent employees, link the safety process to the pre-onboarding phase, directly after signing the contract. This way, new employees receive safety instructions before their first working day.
2. For flexible workers and on-call workers, set up an abbreviated version that can be completed quickly, preferably via a channel they already know and use.
3. Agree with subcontractors which safety information they receive from you and which they bring themselves. Record this in the collaboration agreements.

Choose an accessible delivery channel

The channel largely determines whether employees actually receive and complete the safety information. Choose a channel that requires no additional app, account, or password, so that employees without company equipment can also participate easily.

1. Establish per employee category which channel best reaches them.
2. Ensure the safety instructions are available in the languages used on your worksite. For multilingual teams, this is a prerequisite for effective communication.
3. Test the process with a small group before rolling it out broadly. Check whether the instructions are received, opened, and completed.

After setting up the onboarding process, you can be confident that new employees, regardless of their category, receive the safety foundation before they start work. Check whether the process also works in the event of a sudden influx of employees, such as during a large assignment or a peak period.

Ensure demonstrable compliance and reporting

A safety process is only complete when you can demonstrate that employees have actually received and understood the instructions. This is relevant during internal audits, inspections, and when working with clients who set requirements for safety management.

1. Record per employee which safety instructions have been provided, when this took place, and whether the employee has completed the instruction.
2. Add knowledge checks to the safety instructions. This allows you to record not only that someone has seen the instruction, but also that the content has been understood.
3. Store the records in a central location, so that during an audit or inspection you can quickly provide insight into who has completed what.
4. Set up an overview showing which employees have not yet completed all required instructions, so that you can intervene in good time.

Check whether your reporting also works for temporary employees and subcontractors. A common mistake is to register only permanent employees. Ensure the system covers all categories active on your worksite. Digital recording can help make it clear which instructions have been provided and who has participated.

Keep the process up to date following changes and incidents

A safety process is not a one-off activity. Tasks change, new risks emerge, legislation is revised, and employees come and go. Therefore, build in a structure that keeps the process current.

1. Set a fixed frequency for reviewing the safety instructions. Link this to existing moments, such as the evaluation of the RI&E or the preparation of a new project phase.
2. Ensure there is a procedure that allows you to quickly send out an updated instruction when something changes, for example following a new risk, a changed working method, or an incident on the work floor.
3. Record incidents and near-misses and use that information to improve the safety instructions.
4. Actively inform employees when an instruction has been updated and have them go through the new version. Record these repeat instructions as well.

After every incident, check whether the existing instructions were adequate and whether an update is needed. A good safety process learns from what happens on the work floor and adapts accordingly. This keeps it relevant for all employee categories, even as the composition of your team changes.

How we help with a uniform safety process for all employees

Setting up one safety process for permanent employees, flexible workers, and subcontractors requires an approach that is scalable, accessible, and verifiable. We help organisations with this through our platform, which offers safety instructions, toolbox meetings and onboarding via WhatsApp. No additional app, no account, no password.

• Reach all employee categories via a channel they already know, including employees without a company laptop or email address.
• Send instructions in more than 50 languages thanks to automatic AI translations, so that multilingual teams are always informed in their own language.
• Record participation and knowledge checks via a live dashboard, so you always have insight into who has completed which instruction.
• Keep instructions up to date with access to a library of more than 60 practical safety topics, updated monthly by a senior safety professional.
• Send updated instructions immediately when something changes on the work floor, without paperwork or manual administration.

Would you like to see how our platform works for your organisation? Get in touch with us and we will show you how to set up a uniform safety process that works for every employee on your worksite. Or schedule a personal demo directly and discover what the platform can mean for your organisation.

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