Labour hire provider duties after a labour hire worker is placed

Regular workplace visits

By doing regular workplace visits you can identify new risks to health and safety. If you completed a job safety analysis when you placed your labour hire worker, refer to this to see if anything has changed. If so, remind the host employer that they have a responsibility to involve you and the labour hire worker before any new jobs are assigned to the employee. Host employers and labour hire providers with duties to the same labour hire workers must, so far as reasonably practicable, consult, coordinate and cooperate with each other.

If the labour hire worker's role has changed, carry out a new job safety analysis and update the agreed actions record. Templates are available in the Templates for labour hire providers and host employers page on the WorkSafe website.

You should check whether labour hire workers have the right qualifications/licences to carry out additional duties and that these are captured on your job and training record. Decide whether additional information, instruction, training and supervision is required. If the role involves increased hours, check that this is included in the job or time sheets and that changes to hours do not pose a risk to health and safety.

Meetings with the host employer

Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (OHS Act), labour hire providers and host employers must consult, cooperate and coordinate with each other, so far as reasonably practicable, to ensure all duties to labour hire workers are met.

Meet with the host employer to discuss any issues or concerns that have come up regarding your labour hire workers' health and safety during the workplace visit. A labour hire worker has the same legal rights regarding health and safety at work as any other employee. If the current risk controls are not good enough, try to resolve this with the host employer. It is important to record any agreed resolution. Use the agreed actions record template on the Templates for Labour Hire Providers and Hosts page.

If there have been significant changes to the job that expose labour hire workers to new risks, advise the host employer and labour hire workers that you need to carry out another risk assessment before the labour hire worker performs the job. Arrange a time to do this with the host.

If you can't agree on risk controls, you will need to decide how to protect the labour hire worker. Labour hire providers should have clear procedures which are understood by their field personnel about the steps to follow if there are health and safety concerns for labour hire workers.

Your placed labour hire worker should not do any new tasks until the risk assessment is complete and risk controls have been identified and implemented.

Hazard, incident or issue reporting

Both the labour hire provider and the host employer must keep a register of injuries that is readily accessible. The host employer should have a method for employees to report hazards, incidents, near misses or other OHS issues in the workplace.

Both the labour hire provider and host employer have a duty, so far as reasonably practicable to consult, coordinate and cooperate in relation to labour hire workers' duties. You should ask the host employer to share information with you about any incidents involving your labour hire workers.

If the host has no reporting procedure, employees can use the hazard/incident reporting form on the Templates for Labour Hire Providers and Hosts page.

By law, employers and self-employed persons must notify WorkSafe whenever a worker dies, sustains a serious injury or is exposed to certain serious incidents while working. Duty holders must also ensure the area where the incident occurred is not disturbed.

The legal duty to notify WorkSafe lies with the employer or self-employed person with management or control over the workplace or over the work being done at the time of the incident.