Occupational safety for staffing and temporary work
A staffing agency employs two groups of people: the permanent staff in its branch offices and the workers deployed at client companies. The branch office follows the usual office rules. Who takes on what during an assignment is set by the Temporary Employment Act (AÜG) and the Occupational Health and Safety Act. DGUV Rule 115-801 on the temporary work sector turns this into procedures.
- Staffing & temp agencies
Important: Your own branch office is an office business. The workers you place, however, work in other companies, often in areas with a considerably higher level of risk. The support group follows the economic sector: industrial temporary agency work falls into group II, commercial and administrative agency work into group III. The assessment of the workplaces follows the activities at the hirer.
Agency and hirer: shared responsibility in temporary work
Deployed workers are employed by you but do their work on the hirer's premises. Both sides therefore carry occupational safety duties, and wherever it is unclear who does what, a task is left undone.
The temporary workers' activity is subject to the occupational safety rules of the hirer's business. The hirer must inform them about hazards and protective measures before they start (section 11 (6) AÜG), and the training duty under section 12 ArbSchG also falls to the hirer. Your own duties remain unaffected. Under DGUV Rule 115-801, you select suitable workers, obtain details of the workplace and its hazards before the assignment and ask the hirer for its risk assessment. If there is none, or it is not plausible, you assess the assignment together with the hirer.
Whatever the two sides agree belongs in an occupational safety agreement: occupational health screening, protective equipment, first aid and training. DGUV Rule 115-801 contains a template. Your staffing coordinators need occupational safety knowledge of the fields they recruit for, because they decide who goes to which workplace.
Temporary work and recruitment: insurer, sectors and support groups
| Item | Staffing agency |
|---|---|
| Accident insurance institution | Verwaltungs-Berufsgenossenschaft (VBG), for temporary agency work regardless of the hirers' sector. Employment and personnel placement: also the VBG |
| VBG hazard tariff | Sub-category 11.1 for permanent staff and workers in service areas, 11.2 for all other areas of deployment |
| WZ 78.2 temporary agency work, industrial | Support group II: above 20 employees 1.5 hours of basic support per employee and year |
| WZ 78.3 temporary agency work, commercial and administrative | Support group III: above 20 employees 0.5 hours of basic support per employee and year |
| WZ 78.1 activities of employment placement agencies | Support group II |
| Who counts towards the scope of support | Permanent staff and deployed workers (DGUV Rule 115-801) |
| Safety officers | From 50 employees (section 22 SGB VII, since 29 May 2026). With 21 to 49 employees, one is required if the risk assessment shows a particular hazard to life and health |
| Above 20 employees | Occupational safety committee meeting once per calendar quarter (section 11 ASiG) |
| Up to 50 employees | Unternehmermodell permitted as an alternative |
Which group applies depends on the economic sector your business is assigned to, not on the individual assignment. The specialist and the occupational physician share the basic support, at least 20 per cent each, and company-specific support comes on top. Part-time staff count proportionally towards the threshold of 20: up to 20 hours a week as 0.5, up to 30 hours as 0.75.
The four interfaces in a staffing agency's risk assessment
- Who is responsible for what. During the assignment the occupational safety rules of the hirer apply, and the hirer must inform the workers about hazards and protective measures at the workplace before they start (section 11 paragraph 6 AÜG). The agency remains the employer, and its own duties continue alongside. Both have to be evidenced.
- Training before the assignment. Your general training and the hirer's workplace-specific training are two different things. Documenting only one of them leaves a gap.
- Personal protective equipment. Who supplies the equipment has to be settled in the contract. Unsettled means, in practice, that nobody supplies it and people work without.
- Changing places of work. With frequently changing assignments the number of required briefings grows quickly. Without a fixed routine before every assignment it stays incomplete.
For protective equipment, DGUV Rule 115-801 offers guidance. Equipment against fatal hazards and permanent damage to health, such as fall protection or breathing apparatus, is provided primarily by the hirer, because the hazards are known there and the necessary drills can take place on site.
Walkthroughs at staffing agencies: branch office and client site
In the branch office itself the usual office topics apply. The findings are in the paperwork: there is no evidence that workers were informed about the specific hazards of the assignment beforehand, no confirmation from the hirer about their own briefing, and no arrangement in the supply contract for who provides protective equipment.
Safety training in staffing and temporary work
What works in practice is a two-stage process. Stage one runs at your end, before every assignment, covering the hazards and measures of that specific placement and the reporting route after an accident. Stage two runs at the hirer, at the workplace. Both are documented, and the confirmation from stage two belongs in your file, not only in theirs.
According to DGUV Rule 115-801, the basic training covers several points. Among them are the right to workplace-specific training at the hirer, the prohibition on following instructions that breach safety rules, and the duty to report defects, accidents and deviating tasks to you.
Related
- External occupational safety specialist: What support for the branch office covers and how the hours are calculated.
- Support group and WZ code under DGUV Regulation 2: How the group follows from the economic sector.
- Support-hours calculator: Working out the hours for group II and group III.
- Safety officers in the office: when are they required?: The headcount at which safety officers have to be appointed.
- Maternity protection in the office: What to clarify before an assignment if a worker is pregnant or breastfeeding.
- Occupational safety for management consulting: For HR consultancies that do not supply staff themselves.
Legal basis
- Occupational Health and Safety Act (ArbSchG)
- Social Code Book VII (SGB VII), statutory accident insurance
- Occupational Safety Act (ASiG)
- DGUV Regulation 2 (occupational physicians and safety specialists)
Frequently asked questions
Which employers' liability insurance association covers temporary employment agencies?
The VBG, even if you supply workers to a single sector only. The Hamburg Regional Social Court confirmed this in its judgment of 19 January 2022 (L 2 U 50/19). For contributions, the VBG hazard tariff distinguishes between sub-categories 11.1 and 11.2.
Do deployed workers count towards our support hours?
Yes. Under DGUV Rule 115-801, temporary workers are taken into account for the support model and the scope of support just like permanent staff. The hirer counts them for its own business as well. Your specialist and occupational physician therefore also visit workplaces at the client companies.
Who provides safety shoes and hearing protection for an assignment in production?
What you agree with the hirer in the occupational safety agreement is binding. DGUV Rule 115-801 suggests a split that has proved itself in practice: the agency provides simple safety shoes, industrial hard hats and simple safety glasses, and the hirer provides consumables such as earplugs.
Other business types
Worry-free occupational safety in 4 steps
A simple path from the first conversation to audit-proof documentation.
Free initial consultation
We set out what the law requires, what you don't need and what we deliver. Clarity from day one.
Contract signed
One contract, market-tested fixed price, booked directly with us. First contact to signature: five working days at most.
Start of on-site support
Your specialist visits for the walkthrough, produces the risk assessment and checks: what is there, what is missing?
Audit-proof documentation in the portal
Every record sits in the client portal: digital, complete, current, easy to share.
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