By
·
5 minute read
When you bring in agency or temporary staff to cover the summer, the legal responsibility for their safety on your site sits with you, not the agency that sent them. That catches some people out, and it is one of the questions we field most at this time of year as sites scale up their teams.
A temporary worker walks onto your floor without the months of learned habit your permanent team has. They do not yet know which door opens straight onto a FLT route, which crossing has a blind approach, or where the trucks always cut the corner.
This article covers who is legally responsible for agency and temporary workers, why summer widens the safety gap, and the practical steps that protect someone who is seeing your site for the first time.
Contents
- Who is responsible for agency and temporary worker safety?
- Why does summer widen the safety gap?
- What does the law require?
- Why is an unfamiliar worker more at risk?
- How do you close the gap before the summer peak?
- Frequently asked questions
Who Is Responsible for Agency and Temporary Worker Safety?
In almost every case, the answer is you, the hiring business.
There is a common assumption that because the agency employs and pays the worker, the agency also carries the safety responsibility. In practice, the day-to-day responsibility for health and safety during the assignment lies with the hiring business, because you direct the work and control the premises. The Health and Safety Executive is explicit that the end user business must ensure the safety of agency and temporary workers in the same way it does its own employees.
The agency, or employment business, does have duties. Before the placement, it has to identify known risks with you and pass on what the worker needs to know. But it cannot manage a hazard on a site it does not run. That falls to you.
Why Does Summer Widen the Safety Gap?
Nothing about summer makes a warehouse more dangerous on paper. The gap opens because of who is on site, and who is not.
Three things tend to happen at once. Cover staff arrive to fill holiday gaps and seasonal demand, so more of your floor is being worked by people who do not know it. Your most experienced people, the ones who spot a near miss before it happens, are the ones taking annual leave. And the operational tempo does not drop to match, so the pressure to get someone productive quickly is higher, not lower.
Put those together and the month that feels calmest, because the phones are quieter and half the office is away, is often the month with the thinnest safety margin on the floor. That is the gap worth closing before it opens.
What Does the Law Require?
The duty does not depend on contract type. It sits on whoever controls the workplace.
Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, you owe a duty of care to your own employees (section 2) and to other people affected by your work, which includes agency and temporary staff on your site (section 3). The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 go further: regulations 12 and 15 deal specifically with host employers and temporary workers, requiring risk information to flow between the agency, the hirer and the worker.
The HSE guidance sets out what that looks like in practice. Before the work starts, the agency has to give the worker clear information on their duties, the skills and experience needed to do the job safely, and the risks and controls on your site. And, in the HSE’s own words, everyone involved should agree who does what and never assume someone else will take responsibility for safety.
That last point is where gaps appear. When the agency assumes you have it covered and you assume the agency has, the worker is the one left exposed.
Why Is an Unfamiliar Worker More at Risk?
The HSE highlights that people are most at risk of injury in the first six months in a new workplace, largely because they are less familiar with its specific risks. An experienced operative hears an FLT before they see it and knows to hang back at the bay door. A temporary worker on day two has none of that. They are relying entirely on what the site tells them in the moment.
That matters most around vehicles. Being struck by a moving vehicle remained one of the biggest single causes of workplace death in Great Britain in 2024/25, accounting for 14 of the 124 worker fatalities that year. These are exactly the incidents that catch someone who has not yet learned where it is safe to walk. We covered the risk in detail in Struck by a Moving Vehicle: Why It’s Still One of Warehousing’s Biggest Killers.
The instinct is to fix this with a longer induction. That helps, but it is fragile: inductions are the first thing to compress when a shift is short-handed. The more reliable fix is a site that explains itself, so a worker can read the risk without having to remember a briefing.
How Do You Close the Gap?
Five practical moves, in the order we would tackle them:
Treat the Induction as a Control
A signed induction sheet proves attendance, not understanding. The HSE’s own recommended approach is to walk the site with the new starter, point out hazards where they actually are, use clear language and lean on visual cues rather than a wall of written rules. Prioritise the handful of things that could hurt someone today.
Make the Site Self-Explaining
This is the part that keeps working when the induction is rushed. Physical separation between people and FLTs, projected LED floor markings and warning signs at crossings and blind spots, and clear, unambiguous walkways mean a worker on day one can see the safe route without being told. Where people and vehicles genuinely share space, polymer safety barriers do the job that memory does for your permanent team. Our guide on where safety barriers go, zone by zone is a useful starting point.
Supervise the First Days Properly
Pair every temporary worker with a named experienced colleague for their opening shifts. The catch is that summer is when those experienced people are thinnest on the ground, so plan the buddy cover before the leave rota bites, not after.
Agree Responsibilities With the Agency in Writing
Confirm who handles the site induction, who supplies PPE, and what tasks the worker is and is not cleared for. Do not leave it to assumption on either side.
Check Your Existing Controls Still Hold
Faded floor lines, a barrier that was clipped by an FLT in the spring, a warning sign nobody can read any more. Your permanent team works around these on instinct. A temporary worker cannot. If your signage is being ignored, it is worth understanding why before the summer intake arrives.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are you responsible for agency workers’ health and safety?
Yes. If you control the premises and direct the work, the day-to-day duty of care sits with you as the hiring business, the same as it does for your own employees, regardless of who pays the worker.
Does the agency or the hirer induct a temporary worker?
Both have a role. The agency passes on the risk information you provide before the placement, but the site-specific induction falls to you, because you are the one who controls and understands the workplace.
Do employer safety duties apply to temporary and agency staff?
Yes, regardless of contract type. The duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 attaches to whoever controls the workplace, not to the worker’s employment status.
What is the biggest safety risk to a temporary worker in a warehouse?
Unfamiliarity with the site, especially around vehicle movement areas. New workers are most at risk in their early weeks because they have not yet learned the site’s specific hazards.
How Safe is Your Site for Someone Seeing It for the First Time?
It is worth looking at your floor the way a first-day worker would. Our free two-minute quiz, How Safe and Efficient Is My Factory?, is a quick way to gauge where the obvious gaps are.
If you would rather have a professional set of eyes on it, we offer a paid warehouse safety audit that maps your traffic flows and checks your barriers and markings against the risks.
About the Author
Calvina West is Sales Executive at Clarity Safety, supporting customers day to day and fielding the practical questions that come up when sites scale their teams for busy periods.
Connect with Calvina on LinkedIn
