What this is
What is a temporary and agency worker review?
What is a temporary and agency worker review?
A periodic check of whether agency and short-tenure workers actually received the same induction, training, supervision and hazard-reporting access as permanent staff. It is a singleton: one live record per workspace, reviewed on a cycle rather than raised per worker.
Why review agency workers separately from permanent staff?
Injury rates for agency and temporary workers run higher than for permanent staff in nearly every industry, and the pattern is consistent: a shorter induction, weaker supervision, and less willingness to speak up. A general safety audit will not surface that gap, because it confirms the policy exists without testing whether it reached this population in practice.
What counts as parity of treatment here?
Not identical paperwork, but identical exposure to what keeps someone safe: the same induction content, competency verification, PPE, and inclusion in toolbox talks, evacuation headcounts and consultation on the same terms as anyone else on site.
Scope
When is a temporary and agency worker review required?
This review tests parity of treatment for the general population of agency and short-tenure workers. Where a worker also falls into a specific vulnerable category, age, pregnancy, language, that population has its own dedicated assessment this review should point to rather than absorb.
Use this template when
- The quarterly review interval has come round, or a trigger event, such as an incident involving a temporary worker, has occurred
- A new agency labour arrangement has started and needs its first parity check before it becomes routine
- A hazard report pattern suggests temporary workers are being treated differently in practice, whatever the policy says
- The competency matrix or agency labour provider assessment needs verification that temporary workers actually appear on it
- HR and safety need one shared record of induction, training and supervision parity across the current agency population
Do not use it for
- Young Worker Risk Assessment, the additional risk to workers under eighteen, distinct from temporary or agency status
- New and Expectant Mother Assessment, the workplace assessment for a worker who is pregnant, has recently given birth or is breastfeeding
- Language and Literacy Assessment, the dedicated check for whether safety-critical information reaches a worker who does not read the site language fluently
- Agency Labour Provider Assessment, which vets the agency before the arrangement starts, rather than how workers already on site are treated
- Vulnerable Worker Register, the standing list of individuals carrying a restriction, which this review feeds into rather than duplicates
Compliance mapping
Which ISO 45001 cl.5.4 requirements does this satisfy?
ISO 45001 does not name agency or temporary workers as a distinct category requiring a separate procedure, but its consultation, operational control and hazard identification requirements apply to anyone doing work under the organisation's control, employment status notwithstanding.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | Consultation and participation extended to workers regardless of employment status | Parity of treatment |
| ISO 45001 cl.8.1.1 | Operational controls, including PPE and competency verification, applied consistently across the workforce | Parity of treatment |
| ISO 45001 cl.7.3 | Workers aware of their right and duty to remove themselves from imminent danger, and of hazards to report | Practical experience |
| ISO 45001 cl.6.1.2.1 | Hazard identification accounts for human and organisational factors, including unfamiliarity and short tenure | Practical experience |
| ISO 45001 cl.7.4 | Communication effective for its audience, including language and comprehension | Practical experience |
| ISO 45001 cl.9.1.1 | Monitoring of OH&S performance, including comparison of outcomes across worker categories | Outcomes |
| ISO 45001 cl.8.1.4.3 | Outsourced functions, of which agency labour supply is one, controlled and coordinated | Outcomes |
What it does not cover
- Young Worker Risk Assessment, which assesses the additional risk to workers under eighteen, a distinct category from temporary status.
- New and Expectant Mother Assessment, which assesses the workplace for a worker who is pregnant, has recently given birth or is breastfeeding.
- Language and Literacy Assessment, the dedicated assessment of whether safety-critical information reaches a worker who does not read the site language fluently.
- Agency Labour Provider Assessment, which vets the supplying agency itself, a pre-contract control this review assumes is in place and only checks remains current.
- Vulnerable Worker Register, the standing record of individuals carrying a specific restriction, which this review feeds rather than duplicates.
Global
Temporary and Agency Worker Review requirements by country
Regulators increasingly treat agency and temporary status as a risk factor in its own right rather than an employment-law question with no safety consequence.
OSHA Temporary Worker Initiative; General Duty Clause; joint employer responsibility
Host employer and staffing agency share responsibility for a temporary worker's safety training and protection.
A host site cannot rely on the agency having covered training; the initiative expects the host to verify and, where needed, provide it.
MHSWR 1999, reg.13; Agency Workers Regulations 2010
Employers must account for capabilities when allocating tasks and ensure adequate training from day one, distinct from equal-treatment rights phasing in at twelve weeks.
Safety training and supervision parity cannot be deferred until an agency worker passes a qualifying period; the safety duty applies from the first shift.
ISO 45001 cl.5.4 and cl.8.1.4
Consultation and participation duties are not limited to permanent employees, and outsourced work, including supplied labour, must be controlled and coordinated.
A certification audit tests whether consultation records actually name agency workers, not only whether the system document says they are covered.
How to complete it
How to complete a temporary and agency worker review, step by step
The parity fields on this form are easy to answer generously from memory. The practical experience fields are what make the review honest.
The form scores a shortened induction only one band above a genuinely different one, because skipped content is protection the worker does not have. Do not let shortened read as close enough.
A worker who can be released tomorrow will not stop a job on an implied understanding. Ask the worker directly whether someone told them, in words, rather than accepting a supervisor's assurance it would have come up naturally.
Parity includes whether agency workers appear in the evacuation headcount and are pulled into toolbox talks, facts a training log will not show. A worker fully trained on paper but missed from the muster count has a real gap.
A comparison showing temporary workers with a higher incident rate or lower hazard-reporting rate confirms or contradicts everything else on the form. Good parity scores alongside a worse outcome rate mean something got missed.
What auditors find
Most common temporary and agency worker review findings
Findings on this review rarely concern whether agency workers were included in policy. They concern whether the last real shift matched what the policy promised.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Induction for agency workers recorded as shortened with no documented equivalence to the content missed. | ISO 45001 cl.8.1.1 | Record which induction content was omitted and how, or whether, it was covered another way before unsupervised work began. |
| Agency workers absent from the evacuation headcount or excluded from toolbox talks despite equal presence on site. | ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | Add agency workers to the muster count and toolbox talk attendance by default, not as an exception someone has to remember. |
| Told they can stop work recorded as implied rather than explicit, with no record of who said what. | ISO 45001 cl.7.3 | Require the supervisor to state stop-work authority directly and record when that conversation happened. |
| Language understood marked partly or no, with no accommodation made for the gap. | ISO 45001 cl.7.4 | Route a confirmed language gap to the Language and Literacy Assessment rather than noting it and moving on. |
| Agency labour provider assessment overdue, with the review proceeding as though it were current. | ISO 45001 cl.8.1.4.3 | Treat an overdue agency assessment as a blocking finding here, not a parallel item to chase separately. |
| Incident or hazard-reporting rate for temporary workers worse than permanent staff, with no action raised. | ISO 45001 cl.9.1.1 | Raise corrective action whenever the comparative rate is worse, not only when a serious incident forces the question. |
Case in point
Case in point: the induction that was shorter by design
A distribution centre ran a two-hour induction for permanent starters and a forty-minute version for agency workers supplied for peak season, reasoning that agency staff were only picking and packing, not driving, so vehicle-movement content did not fully apply and was dropped from the shortened version.
An agency worker stepped into an aisle to retrieve a dropped item and was struck by a reversing forklift with right of way under rules the forty-minute induction had never covered. The review that followed found the shortened induction had been treated as an acceptable lesser version for three seasons running, because nobody had asked whether picking near moving vehicles needed the same hazard awareness as driving them.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
5 sections
- Reference
- SAF-152
- Archetype
- Review
- Record ID
- TAR-2026-000
- Scoring
- Parity achieved
- Direction
- High is good
- Singleton
- Yes
- Basis
- ISO 45001 cl.5.4
- Links
- Links Induction, Competency matrix
- Tags
- Vulnerable, Agency
- Sections
- 5
- Fields
- 41
- Follow up fields
- 3
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 4
Header
10 fieldsReview ID*
Auto sequence. Format TAR-2026-000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Completed By*
Site*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
The Gap Is Almost Always Induction Depth
Agency workers are injured at higher rates in nearly every industry. The pattern is a shorter induction, weaker supervision and less willingness to ask.
Period Covered*
Reviewed By*
Temporary Workers In Period*
Parity of treatment
9 fieldsSame Induction As Permanent Staff*
- Yes3 pts
- Shortened1 pt
- Different0 pts
Same Training Requirements*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Same Competency Verification*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Same PPE Provided*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
On The Competency Matrix*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Included In Toolbox Talks*
- Yes3 pts
- Sometimes1 pt
- No0 pts
Included In Emergency Arrangements*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Counted In Evacuation Headcount*
- Yes3 pts
- Sometimes1 pt
- No0 pts
Included In Consultation*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Practical experience
6 fieldsNamed Supervisor On First Shift*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Buddy Assigned*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Told They Can Stop Work*
A worker who can be sent home tomorrow will not stop a job unless told explicitly and repeatedly.
- Yes, explicitly3 pts
- Implied1 pt
- No0 pts
Language Understood*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Asked How It Is Going*
- Yes3 pts
- Sometimes1 pt
- No0 pts
Reports Hazards In Practice*
- Yes3 pts
- Rarely1 pt
- Never0 pts
Related records
1 fieldCompetency Matrix ID
The matrix these workers should appear on.
Links to TRN-020 Matrix ID
Outcomes
15 fieldsIncidents Involving Temporary Workers*
Rate Versus Permanent Staff*
- Lower4 pts
- Similar2 pts
- Higher0 pts
Hazard Reports From Temporary Workers*
Agency Assessment Current*
- Yes3 pts
- Overdue1 pt
- None0 pts
Assessment ID
Links to CON-047 Assessment ID
Agency Informed Of Performance*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
Next Review Due*
HR*
Signature*
Safety Lead*
Second Signature*
SAF-152 · record IDs look like TAR-2026-000 · Links Induction, Competency matrix
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
The review itself is a snapshot. What actually protects agency workers is whether the gaps it finds get closed before the next agency starter walks in.
Compares this review's findings against incident and hazard-report records to confirm whether the parity gap it identifies shows up in outcomes.
Checks that agency workers named in this review appear on the competency matrix and induction records, rather than being covered by assumption.
Tracks the agency labour provider assessment against its due date, and flags this review when it runs while that assessment is overdue.
Watches for a worsening incident or hazard-reporting gap between temporary and permanent workers, and raises it before the next quarterly cycle.
This template lives in KnowSafe — safety and compliance. Incidents, hazards, permits, inspections and the critical controls behind them.
Meet KnowSafe→Glossary
Temporary and Agency Worker Review definitions and key terms
- Parity of treatment
- Equal exposure to induction, training, supervision and workplace inclusion, judged by what actually happened rather than by policy wording.
- Agency worker
- A worker supplied by a third-party provider, employed by the agency but working under the host site's day-to-day control.
- Toolbox talk
- A short, informal safety briefing delivered on site, typically at shift start, that this review checks agency workers are included in.
- Evacuation headcount
- The muster point count confirming everyone on site is accounted for in an emergency, which must include temporary workers to be reliable.
- Named supervisor
- A specific, identified person responsible for a new worker on their first shift, distinct from a general statement that supervision is available.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about temporary and agency worker review
Why does this review exist separately from a general safety audit?+
A general audit typically confirms a policy exists and applies to everyone, and the gap this review targets is not in the policy but in the practice: a shorter induction, weaker supervision, and less willingness to speak up given a temporary arrangement.
Is a shortened induction acceptable if the tasks are genuinely simpler?+
Only if the specific content omitted genuinely does not apply, and that judgement has to be made and recorded, not assumed. Dropping vehicle-movement content because a worker will not drive breaks down the moment that worker still walks through the same aisles.
How often should this review run?+
Quarterly as the baseline, with an additional review triggered by an incident involving a temporary worker, a new agency arrangement, or a hazard-reporting pattern that suggests something has changed.
What if the agency labour provider assessment is overdue?+
Treat it as a blocking finding rather than a separate item to chase later. An overdue provider assessment means the site cannot evidence the agency itself meets the standard this review assumes.
What does told they can stop work actually require?+
An explicit, direct statement, not an assumption it was covered by general induction content. The form treats an implied understanding as incomplete because a worker who can be released at short notice needs to hear it stated, not inferred.
Who should carry out this review?+
Safety and HR jointly: safety owns induction and hazard content, and HR typically holds the agency relationship and the tenure and turnover data that explains what the numbers mean.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Vulnerable and Temporary Workers
Agency Labour Provider Assessment
Assesses an agency for how it screens, trains, inducts and supervises the people it sends
Return to Work Programme Plan
Sets out how the site brings people back to work after injury or illness, covering triggers, roles, timescales and the duties that are actually available
Young Worker Risk Assessment
Assesses the additional risk to workers under eighteen, covering inexperience, awareness and prohibited tasks
New and Expectant Mother Assessment
Assesses the workplace for a worker who is pregnant, has recently given birth or is breastfeeding
Language and Literacy Assessment
Assesses whether safety critical information reaches people who do not read the site language fluently
Workplace Adjustment Record
Records an adjustment made so somebody can do their job safely, whatever the underlying reason
More in Vulnerable Workers
Young Worker Risk Assessment
Assesses the additional risk to workers under eighteen, covering inexperience, awareness and prohibited tasks
New and Expectant Mother Assessment
Assesses the workplace for a worker who is pregnant, has recently given birth or is breastfeeding
Language and Literacy Assessment
Assesses whether safety critical information reaches people who do not read the site language fluently
Workplace Adjustment Record
Records an adjustment made so somebody can do their job safely, whatever the underlying reason
Vulnerable Worker Register
Holds the workers who currently need additional consideration, with the adjustment in place and its review date
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- ISO 45001:2018 clause 5.4, Consultation and participation of workers
- ISO 45001:2018 clause 8.1.4, Outsourcing
- OSHA Temporary Worker Initiative and joint employer guidance (US)
- Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 13 (GB)
- Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (GB)
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.