New set of safety and health best practices for host employers of temporary workers

Recently released safety and health best practices for host employers!

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—in partnership with the American Society of Safety Professionals, the American Staffing Association, the National Occupational Research Agenda Services Sector Council, and the Safety and Health Assessment and Research for Prevention Program within Washington State’s Department of Labor and Industries—has released a new set of best practices, Protecting Temporary Workers: Best Practices for Host Employers, to help host employers better protect the safety and health of temporary workers. Estimates suggest there may be as many as 16 million temporary workers in the U.S. during a year.

Research shows that the risk of experiencing a work-related injury may be higher for temporary workers (i.e., those who are paid by a staffing company and assigned to work for a host employer company) compared to non-temporary workers. This new resource provides detailed best practices for host employers that are applicable across industries and occupations. It is organized into three areas:

1) How to evaluate and address workplace safety and health in a written contract

2) Training for temporary workers and their worksite supervisors

3) Injury and illness reporting, response, and recordkeeping

The document also includes scenarios of how host employers can implement the best practices as well as checklists that can be printed or completed electronically. There is also a complementary slide deck staffing companies can use to educate their host employer clients about the best practices.

In 2013, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) launched its Temporary Worker Initiative in response to increasing reports of temporary workers suffering serious or fatal injuries, some even in their first days on the job. The OSHA Temporary Worker Initiative has issued numerous guidance documents outlining the joint safety and health responsibilities of staffing companies and host employers. This new resource builds on this work by providing an in-depth set of best practices for host employers to follow and supporting materials to facilitate their implementation.

We encourage you to share this new resource among your networks. You can find a dissemination toolkit for the document—including a draft email, a flyer, and some social media messages—on the document home page.

If you have any questions or comments about this new resource, please contact the NORA Coordinator at [email protected].