With that I have a question on safety. Do you have a documented company safety program? I only ask because I'm curious and want to know in case we ever run into the same issue.
NOTICE: This comment was moved from an existing discussion: Ranking Responses To $4.6 Million School Surveillance Project
Our company does have a documented safety program - we also have a full time safety supervisor who adminsters the program, whcih is essential. We have yearly insepctions from a outside certified safety company. All toll this costs about $75,000 per year but it allows us to compete on jobs where this is required- it weeds out the smaller alarm companies and I think also allows us to maintatin a better margin on sales - it certainly ups our credibility. From what I have heard soon in Canada we will be getting a UL certifcation program for video cameras not sure how it will or will not complement the safety program but fro sure will drive costs up.
We have an OSHA-compliant safety program in place. Many of our customers are industrial, several Fortune 500s, etc. and require significant safety compliance measures. ISN certification seems to be the latest trend amongst our Fortune 500 manufacturing customers. I suspect it is just a cost savings for them as it appears all the costs of compliance get offloaded onto us.
In the US, OSHA generally requires written workplace safety programs and recordkeeping for companies with more than 10 employees.
Big 'Fortune 500' companies often tout exemplary safety ratings and/or are 'self-insured', or have stringent qualifications placed on them by outside insurers.
The last thing they want to deal with is a subcontractor (like a security integrator) having a lost-time accident or incurring damages and gunking up an otherwise (contrived?) spotless safety records or costing unplanned money in insurance claims.
This is why you see such requirements in a bid response. Sure, pick the best solution for the job, but also pick a subcontractor who isn't a danger to themselves or others while executing it.
Fundamentals of wearing the correct PPE, ladder safety, Lock-Out/Tag-Out, bloodborne pathogens, and construction worksite safety should be core training for any integrator or installer, trunkslammers included.
Here in Ontario, just about everything you listed is mandatory and is documentation you need to provide to GCs before you even step foot onto a construction site.
Also for many of our larger customers, they use outside agencies (Complyworks, ContractorCheck) to ensure you meet all of their requirements to work in their locations, and this includes insurance requirements as well. We as Integrators, foot the bill to become approved through these organizations (Average of $500 per organization plus annual renewals around $200) plus we must regularly submit our updated information to them. In the last couple of years many of our customers have gone to one of these 2 organizations to maintain contractor documents for them, so for us it is the cost of continuing to do business with our customers.
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