A contractor is anyone who works for your company, but who is not an employee. Contractors may be:
- large or small companies;
- permanent full-time ‘employees’ (canteen, maintenance, etc.);
- regular ‘jobbing’ companies (window cleaners, etc.); and
- less frequent providers (service engineers, emergency breakdown engineers, etc.).
There is not a direct relationship between the size of the company or size of the task and the risks likely to arise from the work being carried out. A contractor may only be on-site for a short time but could be repeatedly exposed to high risks (e.g. window cleaning).
You are responsible for the health and safety of your contractors’ employees as they are visitors to your site.