Using Your Contract Management System to Navigate an Emergency

Did you know that a Contract Management System can literally save the day in times of emergency? Not in the ‘leaping from tall buildings’ sense, but in more of a supportive way, offering solutions to managing the new processes our workplace must implement when faced with a crisis.

There are many emergencies that might threaten our businesses and organisations. Fires, earthquakes, intense storms and pandemics can and do descend upon us with little notice. The most recent of these, on a global scale, has been COVID. With new laws and restrictions around COVID becoming the norm, we’ve been forced to rapidly restructure our systems and procedures. This kind of change puts a huge strain on staff, if the right system isn’t implemented.

Thankfully, the flexible nature of our SaaS Contract Management System, is customisable enough to give bespoke support when challenges arise.

Infected Visitors

As we move forward into an era of ‘living with COVID’, it’s likely that someone infected with COVID will visit your business. You may need to advise your contractors to get tested and quarantine. In these situations, fast action can make all the difference to resuming operations as soon as possible!

Firstly, you’ll need access to contractor information and a way to contact them quickly. With a cloud-based Contract Management System already in place, your contractors’ details should be easily at hand. To get in touch, you can enable a blast communication through your software to all of your contractors at the same time. Communicate details such as the date and time of infection at your premises and advise them of their obligations to get tested and quarantine according to the current state laws. In the same way your system can also facilitate the communication of your rules and policies in response to COVID pandemic conditions. These can be updated within your system as necessary.

Vaccine Status

Another challenge relates to the requirement that contractors be vaccinated. When it comes to organisations with many, many contractors – how do you keep track of who is vaccinated and who is not? There are big penalties and fines for non-compliance, which, naturally, we want to avoid. Consider your current Contract Management System – does it rely on a filing cabinet for storage? In emergency conditions, this kind of system leaves too many opportunities for human error and potential disaster.

A SaaS software Contract Management System is designed to keep track of contractor compliance for you – so you can focus less on damage control and more on the tasks you were hired to do. The compliance module in the WebCM Contract Management System was built to help organisations provide evidence to external authorities that mandated laws, regulations and policies are being complied with.

All certification statuses (including vaccines) can be kept track of with ease. When you log into your system, a traffic light status of red, amber or green can be applied to certification-based triggers that reflect the status of the actions contributing to the requirement. For example, contractors may be required to have booster shots to maintain their ‘fully vaccinated’ certification. Your system will apply a status to the contractor according to its level of urgency.

Allocating a compliance action in this way, lets you know if a vaccine certificate is about to expire. It also ensures that a contractor’s representative is notified if they are not up to date with their requirements, as well as the due date for this to be completed.

Exceptions and Waivers

Occasionally, legitimate circumstances can get in the way of compliance. What if there is a vaccine supply shortage? Your Contract Management System will allow you to customise for that also. Parties can apply for exceptions and waivers to vaccine certification requirements which will change the due date or provide an alternative. Of course, for exceptions to be granted, the appropriate documentation needs to be provided as evidence and stored on your system.

These are just a few examples of the pre-emptive support a Contract Management System can provide as you navigate an emergency. And, although it doesn’t leap from tall buildings, if customised and implemented properly, a SaaS Contract Management System will stand up to many a new challenge as you restructure your processes.