- Contractor induction usually fails on account set-up: nobody wants to issue a password to a person who will be on site for six hours.
- The result is a paper sign-in sheet that proves attendance but not competence, insurance or briefing.
- Adding the contractor by email when the job is booked, and letting them sign in once on their own phone, captures documents, acknowledgements and a signature against a named person.
A signature in a visitor book proves somebody arrived. After an incident the questions are whether they were briefed, whether their insurance was current and whether the permit conditions were acknowledged. Those answers need a record with attachments and a name on it, not a line in a column.
Why contractor onboarding is different
An employee is inducted once and stays for years. A contractor may be on site for a single afternoon, may never return, and may be a different person from the same firm next week. Traditional account set-up, with a password, an app and an admin approving it, is pure overhead for that, so it does not happen and the process falls back to paper.
What a phone-based induction covers
- Documents before arrival. Insurance certificate, method statement and risk assessment uploaded by the contractor in advance.
- Acknowledgement on site. Site rules and hazards presented, with each section acknowledged rather than a single blanket tick.
- Permit conditions. Hot work, confined space or working-at-height conditions accepted and timestamped.
- A signature. Captured on the contractor’s own phone, attached to the record.
- Sign-off on exit. Area left safe, isolations removed, tools accounted for.
Why one email sign-in works where accounts did not
When the job is booked, add the contractor with their name and email. They get an email, sign in on their phone with that address (a sign-in link arrives, so there is no password to set), and the induction is waiting for them. There is nothing to install, and the effort is roughly that of filling in a form, which is what they expected to do anyway. The difference is that every answer, upload and signature carries their name.
Keeping it current between visits
Because the record belongs to a named person at a named firm, an expiring insurance certificate can be flagged before the next visit rather than discovered at the gate. The same applies to competency cards and training expiry. When the work ends, archive them; their records stay.
What it costs
Nothing per contractor. Every RakuOps plan includes unlimited users and charges only for the sites you run, so inducting two hundred contractors a year costs the same as inducting two.