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Building a More Consistent Approach to Contractor Safety

For one mill represented at the TAPPI and PPSA workshop, a typical day may bring 45 contractor companies and roughly 350 contractors onsite. Few of them work only for that mill. They carry experience and habits from one facility to the next, and each facility may have slightly different expectations at the gate. 

That's the real contractor safety challenge for the pulp, paper, and packaging industry: not any single facility's program, but the gaps between programs. As experienced in-house workers retire and facilities increasingly rely on contractors for critical work, those gaps become even more important to address.

Closing those gaps will take a shared effort. That message came through clearly during the workshop, co-facilitated by Leslie Petrie of TAPPI and Brian Bjork, chair of the Pulp & Paper Safety Association (PPSA) Contractor Safety Committee.

Safety Begins Before the Gate

The group agreed that contractor safety starts well before anyone arrives onsite. It begins with a clear scope of work that spells out required qualifications, hazards, risk levels, tools, and emergency or rescue procedures. Those qualifications and requirements then need to be verified through contractor-management processes and platforms.

But verifying qualifications is only the starting point.

Participants stressed pairing computer-based learning with site-specific communication and face-to-face engagement with the people performing the work. Checklists, scorecards, and approval processes can help verify readiness and manage changes when conditions differ from the original plan.

Once work begins, ongoing communication remains essential. Simultaneous operations (SIMOPS) coordination, safe-work permitting, stop work authority, contractor-to-contractor communication, and work-in-progress evaluations all help crews recognize and respond to changing conditions.

Two-way communication was a recurring theme. Contractors need to understand a facility's expectations. They also need to feel empowered to speak up when field conditions don't match the plan. Several attendees urged bringing frontline contractor employees into future discussions to better understand how procedures translate into daily practice.

Where Consistency Could Help

Participants explored which contractor safety practices could benefit most from greater consistency across facilities. The goal is not to make every site operate identically. Rather, it is to reduce unnecessary variation for contractors moving from site to site.

Working at heights and roof safety drew particular attention because of the potential severity of falls. Attendees discussed crane operations, elevated work, and a critical planning question that can sometimes receive too little attention: If someone falls, how are they rescued?

The group also looked at other industries, such as oil and gas, that have developed approaches for sharing safety information and best practices. A similar mindset could help the pulp, paper, and packaging industry learn collectively, rather than solving the same problems site by site.

One suggestion was a quarterly call where safety peers could share near misses and incidents for feedback and analysis. The goal would be to identify emerging risks and circulate lessons before similar events occur elsewhere. Participants also called for better data on where and how contractors are being injured so future efforts can focus on the areas of greatest need.

Turning Shared Experience Into Practical Guidance

One of the workshop's most promising discussions focused on how the industry's collective experience might be converted into resources that facilities and contractors can put into practice.

Attendees discussed the potential development of contractor safety guidance through TAPPI Technical Information Papers (TIPs). Future TIPs could draw on the experience of PPSA, TAPPI, TAPPISAFE, mills, plants, contractors, and safety professionals to provide a practical framework for evaluating and strengthening contractor safety programs.

Not every idea needs to become a formal TIP. Participants also proposed monthly micro-lessons covering topics such as crane operations and elevated work, potentially shared through TAPPI OnDemand, along with quarterly webinars, videos, and joint efforts with other industry safety committees.

Building Safety Together

The workshop was not intended to solve every contractor safety challenge in a single session. Instead, it brought together people closest to those challenges to identify where the industry can learn from one another, where greater consistency could have the greatest impact, and how shared experience can be turned into practical guidance.

The vision that emerged from the workshop is straightforward: share knowledge, strengthen safety practices, and work together so every contractor and employee goes home safe.

TAPPISAFE® partners with mills, plants, contractors, and industry leaders to support a safer, more consistent approach to contractor safety. Its web-based platform helps sites standardize onboarding, communicate consistent safety expectations, and ensure their workforce arrives at the job site ready for gate entry. Learn more at tappisafe.org.