NORA Services Sector Council
New Set of Best Practices to Help Host Employers Protect Temporary Workers
The future of work brings new challenges to occupational safety and health, including how to best protect and promote the safety and health of workers employed through non-standard work arrangements, such as temporary agency work. Host employers of temporary workers (i.e., the clients of staffing companies) should do their part to optimize the safety, health, and productivity of their workers. The NORA Services Sector Council, NIOSH and partners have released a new set of workplace safety and health best practices for host employers with information on contracting with staffing companies, training, injury response, and more.
The NORA Services Sector is a highly diverse sector with over 76 million U.S. workers distributed across 11 major NAICS industry groups. It ranges from teachers to hotel housekeepers, movie producers to librarians, bank tellers to restaurant cooks, among many other occupations. The work accomplished by these workers, day after day, is even more diverse. While we can celebrate their contributions to the well-being of all of us, we know that some jobs and tasks have inherent risks. An important priority for the Sector is to address needs of workers who experience disproportionate incidence of occupational injuries and illnesses, such as temporary and contingent workers. Other important issues that cut across much of the services industry include occupational stress, hearing loss, traumatic injuries, and musculoskeletal disorders. Finally, while many can easily recognize the potential for workplace violence in banks and among public safety workers, the risk for homicide is great for workers in the restaurant, education, and administrative and support services industries.
Information is available about the NIOSH Services Program, which facilitates the work of the council.