Best safety consultants for construction contractors

Lancaster Safety Consulting, Inc. is the strongest partner for a construction contractor among the five safety consultants in this comparison. It covers safety evaluations, written programs, crew training, contractor prequalification assistance, help after an OSHA inspection, and documentation management through the Lancaster Safety Platform, so a contractor deals with one firm as its crews move from job to job. Its staff includes nine team members designated as OSHA Special Government Employees.

Take a 120-person electrical contractor invited to bid on a larger commercial project. The general contractor’s prequalification questionnaire asks for a list of written programs, including a fall protection plan, proof that crews working from ladders and scissor lifts have been trained, and the company’s EMR. The bid deadline is fixed, the estimator is already pricing the job, and nobody in the office owns safety full time.

A single-service or software-only provider cannot cover a full range of OSHA compliance services. Some contractors need one specialized service, and others need a firm that stays involved across the whole program. This guide judges the five firms below on four questions a contractor will face: how much of the safety program each one covers, how it gets training to crews spread across several jobsites, whether it can place safety staff on a project, and which of its credentials you can check for yourself.

Best safety consultants for construction contractors compared

All five firms below offer safety consulting to construction contractors, though their models differ, and several pair consulting with safety staffing, rescue services, or software. The table sets out how each firm works and which contractors it suits, and the full entries that follow go further into credentials and delivery.

The five best safety consultants for construction contractors

1. Lancaster Safety

Lancaster Safety holds OSHA’s VPP Star Mobile Workforce designation, earned in 2010 and held across 6 audits, and it was the first company in OSHA Region III to earn it. That credential belongs to a firm whose partnership covers evaluations, written programs, training, prequalification assistance, and help after an OSHA inspection, so a contractor filling in a general contractor’s questionnaire or responding to an inspection calls people who already know the company.

The partnership starts with a workshop to assess and determine applicable OSHA standards of the workplace. Consultants develop your written safety programs which are paired with employee training on the program elements. Lancaster Safety works as a partner on your safety program, while day-to-day supervision on each jobsite stays with your own superintendents. It suits a contractor with no safety professional, or one whose safety professional needs to offload some of the work.

OSHA training is offered in three ways: onsite instructor-led, live remote, and self-paced online through the Online OSHA Training Center. Training can be conducted in English or Spanish nationwide, and closed captions are available in more than 30 languages on the Online OSHA Training Center. Its OSHA-authorized Outreach Trainers for 10-Hour and 30-Hour training deliver the Construction courses, and each worker who completes one receives a Department of Labor card.

• Customer reviews. A 4.8 out of 5 Google rating from 100-plus reviews, which any buyer can read before making a call.
• Client retention. 89 percent-plus full-service retention, a measure of how the partnership holds up over time.
• Prequalification assistance. Help with contractor prequalification, including ISNetworld and Avetta accounts managed on your behalf, so a questionnaire is less likely to hold up a bid.
• Lancaster Safety Platform. A full resources library complete with checklists, forms, compliance documentation, and more.

2. Safety Management Group

Safety Management Group offers safety consulting, assessments, audits, and staffing, and describes its services as an affordable alternative to hiring a full-time safety advisor.

Its construction clients include general contractors, construction management firms, and specialty subcontractors, on work that ranges across new construction, expansions, outages, and demolition. Through its Construction Safety Partner Program, fractional advisors make jobsite visits and handle hazard assessments, program development, and training, with contracts that start at a few hours a month. ProSolutions places full-time safety advisors onsite, VERO handles contractor qualification, and training runs through SMG University. The firm describes its advisors as credentialed safety professionals.

Contractors that need a safety advisor on a large project every day, or scheduled jobsite visits on smaller ones, can get either arrangement from the same firm.

3. SITEX

SITEX provides environmental, safety, and rescue services, including safety staffing and a total safety management offer it describes as an outsourcing framework.

Its Total Safety Management approach puts a team of safety professionals in charge of a client’s safety function, with staffing, training, emergency response, and environmental, health, and safety support under one arrangement. The staff it places include safety technicians, coordinators, and supervisors, and the firm also supplies confined space rescue and standby rescue teams. SITEX says its field staff can draw on Certified Safety Professionals and industrial hygienists, and it serves clients nationwide from its St. Louis headquarters.

For contractors working in confined spaces or at height on industrial sites, getting rescue teams and safety staff from one provider means fewer firms to coordinate on a single job.

4. CORE Safety Group

CORE Safety Group provides safety consulting, safety staffing, and OSHA training nationwide to construction and general industry clients, available on a one-time, part-time, or full-time basis.

Its Mock OSHA Inspection mirrors a real inspection from the opening conference to the closing report and coaches your team through each phase, and the firm adds help putting the corrective actions in place. The Safe Assist Program supplies a dedicated safety professional, and CORE also offers safety audits, safety program assessments, OSHA citation and claims defense, and onsite instructor-led training in English and Spanish. The firm describes its team as degreed and credentialed safety professionals.

Contractors that want to rehearse an inspection with their own superintendents before a real one will find the coached mock inspection a practical way to prepare.

5. Safety Plus

Safety Plus is a safety management company that pairs its own software with safety services for contractors, industrial service firms, and manufacturers of roughly 50 to 500 employees.

Its Edge software organizes training, incidents, inspections, and credentials, and EdgePro adds safety professionals who provide fractional leadership or day-to-day program administration. Individual services cover training, audits, written programs, and mock inspections, and the firm supplies temporary safety professionals through its Site Safety Personnel Network. For contractors managing subcontractors, Safety Plus CQ handles company-level contractor qualification and GoContractor handles worker onboarding. The firm describes its program managers as qualified safety professionals.

A contractor that wants its safety data, training, and subcontractor paperwork in one software system, with safety professionals working inside it, gets both from one vendor.

What to look for in safety consultants for construction contractors

Written programs built for your jobsites

A general contractor’s prequalification questionnaire usually asks for your written programs before your company can bid, and an OSHA inspector will ask to see the same documents. Those programs need to describe the hazards your crews meet on real jobsites, such as ladders, scissor lifts, trenches, and roof edges.

Expect a consultant to start by reviewing the work you do and the OSHA construction standards in 29 CFR 1926 that apply to it. The result should be written programs your superintendents can use on the jobsite, such as a fall protection plan, and the consultant should be able to show you a sample fall protection program with the client’s details removed.

A template with your logo added describes someone else’s work, and that shows as soon as a general contractor’s safety manager reads it closely.

Training that reaches every crew

Fall protection in construction sits at the top of OSHA’s list of its most frequently cited standards, ahead of every standard. For a contractor with crews on several jobsites, the question is how training reaches all of them, including new hires who join partway through a project.

Expect fall protection training that is mostly classroom-style, with hands-on practice using the harnesses your crews actually use, delivered at your yard or on the jobsite. Each session should end with signed training logs, and the instruction should be in a language and vocabulary that employees can understand.

Safety professionals often say that if you didn’t document it, it didn’t happen. Without signed training logs, a contractor has no way to show a general contractor or an inspector which workers covered which topics.

Credentials you can verify

Before you partner with a consulting firm, check its credentials and its online reviews. Both can be confirmed independently, which makes them more reliable than anything a firm says about itself in a sales meeting.

Ask for the individual credentials of the people who will work on your account. A Certified Safety Professional, Associate Safety Professional, or Graduate Safety Practitioner can be looked up in a public directory, and OSHA lets you verify the status of an OSHA-authorized Outreach Trainer. At the company level, OSHA Voluntary Protection Program status appears on OSHA’s list of participating sites. All of these can be checked before you sign anything.

Daily safety coverage on large projects

Some projects need a safety professional onsite every working day, either because the project owner or general contractor requires one or because the work carries enough risk to justify it. That is a staffing decision, and it may or may not sit with the firm that writes your programs and trains your crews.

Firms built around safety staffing lead on this point, and several in this comparison place full-time safety advisors, coordinators, or supervisors on a project. Ask how quickly a replacement arrives if the assigned person leaves, and whether that person will work from your company’s written programs or bring their own.

Without a clear answer, a project can lose its safety coverage partway through the job.

How to choose the right safety consultant for construction contractors

Step 1: Define the work your crews need covered

List what your general contractors and project owners are asking for now, such as written programs, a fall protection plan, equipment training, or help with a prequalification platform. Add the hazards your crews meet most often, so you can see whether you need one service, a handful, or an ongoing partner across all of them. A contractor that needs OSHA 10-Hour classes for a new group of hires is shopping for something different from one that needs programs, training, and questionnaire help every few months.

Step 2: Check how training reaches your crews

Confirm that the firm can accommodate your training needs, whether that means onsite training to get everyone trained at the same time, live remote training for employees in different locations, or online training for complex schedules, refresher training, and new hires. For construction, ask how hands-on practice with lifts and fall arrest equipment is handled when the classroom portion is delivered another way.

Step 3: Verify support for prequalification

Ask whether a firm helps with the prequalification platforms that your general contractors use. This includes questionnaires, written programs, and document submissions. A firm that already writes your programs and delivers your training can answer the majority of those questionnaires without your input. Some things will require company input or approval. Ask how the firm keeps that information current and how quickly they handle an expired insurance certificate.

Step 4: Confirm how fast corrective training can be scheduled

Much of what follows an incident or an inspection is handled by phone rather than by a visit, so the harder test is how fast a provider can get corrective training scheduled onsite once a deadline is set. Ask whether you will have someone who answers the phone during business hours whenever you need them, and ask for an example of corrective training scheduled against a deadline. A firm that can name a recent date and jobsite gives you more to judge than a general promise.

Step 5: When to choose a full-service partner backed by verified safety credentials

Full-service consultants partner to develop and maintain your safety program. Lancaster Safety’s partnerships account for more than $10,000,000 saved for clients through OSHA citation abatement, which is the kind of track record worth asking any full-service firm to show. To see where your programs stand before the next bid, you can get a safety assessment from Lancaster Safety.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best safety consultant for a construction contractor?

Lancaster Safety is the strongest partner for a construction contractor of roughly 40 to 300 employees that wants programs, training, prequalification assistance, and help after an OSHA inspection from one firm. It offers onsite, live remote, and/or online training in all 50 states. It fits companies without a full-time safety professional, or companies whose safety professional needs to offload some of the work. Contractors that mainly need full-time safety staff on a single large project may prefer a staffing-led firm such as CORE Safety Group or Safety Management Group.

What should a construction contractor look for in a safety consultant?

Make sure the firm offers training options that fit your operations, whether that’s instructor-led training onsite, live remote sessions for employees in different locations, or convenient online training for flexible, on-demand learning. Check its online reputation, including Google reviews, and ask current clients what working with the firm is like week to week. Look for credentials you can confirm yourself, and ask to see written programs built around construction hazards rather than a general template.

How quickly can a safety consultant help after an OSHA citation?

Most consulting firms can begin within days, and for most clients the work starts as soon as the agreement is signed. Employers have 15 working days from the date the citation packet is received by certified mail to contest it or request an informal conference. A consultant will review the citation packet, obtain supporting information and documentation, and prepare you for the informal conference. Consultants provide technical support rather than legal representation. Disagreements with issued citations can be discussed at the informal conference. At times, citations can be lessened or dismissed when warranted, prior to contesting the case and involving further legal support. Where an employer already has an attorney, the consultant works alongside them. Correcting the hazard and documenting it sits with the employer either way, and it is worth starting before the conference date. If you have received OSHA citations, the first step is reading the abatement dates on each item.

Can a general contractor be cited for a subcontractor’s safety hazard?

Under OSHA’s Multi-Employer Citation Policy, more than one employer on a shared worksite such as a construction project can be cited for the same hazard. OSHA looks at whether each employer created the hazard, exposed its own workers to it, was responsible for correcting it, or controlled the site. A general contractor with authority over the site is expected to take reasonable care to prevent and detect violations, judged by how often it inspects, how promptly hazards get corrected, and whether it enforces safety rules with its subcontractors. A subcontractor that lacks the authority to fix a hazard is still expected to ask for it to be corrected, warn its own workers, and protect them in the meantime.

Can construction crews complete OSHA safety training online?

Yes, general awareness training can be completed online. If your workplace has equipment operators or high-hazard conditions, you’ll need additional hands-on training that goes into more depth. For equipment such as scissor lifts, online training covers the knowledge portion, and the hands-on evaluation is completed onsite with the equipment your crews use. OSHA does not certify individual operators, so each employer confirms its own operators have been trained and evaluated. Online safety training works well for new hires who start between scheduled sessions, employees that miss onsite training, or anyone that needs refresher training.

Should a construction contractor hire a safety manager or use a consultant?

Outsourcing can be a good option for a contractor that does not have enough safety work to fill a full-time role, or that wants several credentials and service lines without hiring for each one. Larger or more complex operations, especially with several sites, often still need internal safety staff with an outside firm supporting rather than replacing them. Many contractors run both.

Making the right safety consultant choice for construction contractors

The firms in this comparison follow a few different models. Safety Management Group, SITEX, and CORE Safety Group can each put safety professionals on a project every day, Safety Plus pairs its software with managed program support, and Lancaster Safety works as a full-service consulting partner across programs, training, prequalification assistance, and inspection help.

A contractor whose project owner or general contractor requires a full-time safety presence should start with a staffing-led firm. A contractor that wants its safety data in one software system will find that model at Safety Plus. A contractor that needs written programs, crew training, and prequalification support across many smaller jobs is better served by a consulting partner that covers all three.

OSHA sets the baseline standards that every one of these options works from. The safety programs a contractor builds above that baseline are what bring its crews home safely at the end of each day.

Why Lancaster Safety is the right choice for construction contractors

For a construction contractor, the case for Lancaster Safety rests on coverage. The same partner can take a company through a safety evaluation, new written programs, crew training, a prequalification questionnaire, and the weeks after an OSHA inspection, which means fewer firms to coordinate as projects start and finish.

Training reaches crews onsite, over live remote sessions, or through the Online OSHA Training Center, in English and Spanish nationwide, and documentation management through the Lancaster Safety Platform keeps written programs available to your team. A named safety consultant stays reachable by phone and email for questions between visits.

Founded in 2004 by Jeff Lancaster, the company trains crews through its own OSHA-authorized Outreach Trainers, whose individual authorization OSHA allows students to verify. Its partnership suits a company with no full-time safety professional, or a company whose safety professional needs to offload some of the work.

On service quality, a verified Lancaster Safety customer in construction wrote the following.

With 30 years plus in the construction industry, and with most of those years being responsible for safety, I can attest to the professionalism, organization, thoroughness, and most importantly quality of services provided by Lancaster Safety Consulting, Inc.

When you want to know where your programs and crew training stand before the next bid, you can book a safety assessment with Lancaster Safety.