ISNetworld (ISN) is required by many clients, but there are benefits to ISN compliance for companies too. With safety in mind, ISN covers many topics that help companies stay on track to meet safety goals. Here, I give an overview of ISN requirements.
Company Information
Because each company is different, your specific company information needs to stay up to date. Within the Company Information section, you must choose your specific work type. The work type chosen will trigger many more requirements, including the topics that must be covered in your safety manual.
Another important section under Company Information is the Site Tracker. This is one of the most important sections because it is where you report your client-specific safety statistics. Depending on your client’s requirements, you will enter stats on a monthly and/or quarterly basis. Each customer will require hours worked specifically for them, along with a report of any incidents. Incidents will certainly lower your grade.
Document Center
The Document Center holds many pieces of information that also need to be kept up to date. Certificates of insurance, incident information, and hiring client-specific information are entered or uploaded into the Document Center.
Insurance must be uploaded yearly and on schedule, or your client’s grades will lower to a failing score immediately. Each client requires specific coverage and possibly certain additional endorsements. When you have several clients, this can be a very tedious but necessary task to handle all at once.
Within the Document Center are your most important safety statistics. Here, you will upload your OSHA forms and Experience Modifier. This is another section that can heavily impact your grade. Preventing incidents within your company not only keeps your clients happy but makes for a better workplace overall.
There are many requirements under the Hiring Client Specific section. Each client has different requirements, and some are more involved with safety than others. Contracts and agreements, acknowledgment forms, and other documents are uploaded into this section. Clients can post rules for site visits, their specific safety policies, and other notices that you are required to acknowledge. Some clients require your company’s project-specific safety plan to be uploaded in this section. Anything client-specific can be requested through the Hiring Client-Specific section.
Questionnaire
The Questionnaire is another important section. The most used questionnaires are the General and United States. Within this section is another place where your company-specific information is required. What you enter will affect other sections within ISNetworld®. For example, if you upload a document with the letterhead of a subsidiary or parent company, but you only have your company’s legal name entered here, the document will be rejected. Contact information, services performed, and possible union trades are required to be entered correctly on the Questionnaire.
The United States questionnaire can have a tremendous negative impact on your client’s grade in ISNetworld®. There are so many subtopics within this questionnaire, that it would be overwhelming to address them all in this blog. I could write several separate blog posts on this section!
These subtopics can impact your grade, but some of the more important ones include Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Metrics, Incident Investigation, Reporting and Analysis, and specific topics like Cybersecurity and Pandemic Response. Specifically, KPIs must be updated at regular intervals, or your grade will quickly drop.
RAVs
The final necessary section is the Review & Verification (RAVs) section. Different written safety programs are required in this section, depending on the work type you selected for your company. You will find results from ISN® RAVs Plus audits in this section. The written safety programs required are dependent on client requests and OSHA standards. These programs must cover these requirements down to specific wording. They are reviewed at designated intervals and must pass approval. Missing or rejected RAVs will certainly lower your grade.
For more information on RAVs, check out my previous post: Upload RAVs® to ISNetworld® in 5 Steps.
