What a labour hire audit actually asks for: tickets, licences and inductions
When a client or auditor asks, they rarely want your policy. They want evidence for a named worker on a named shift. Here is what labour hire compliance management needs to have ready.
Most labour hire agencies have a compliance policy. Far fewer can answer a simple question quickly: “Show me that this worker held a current ticket on the day you sent them to our site.”
That is what an audit usually comes down to. Not the policy, but the evidence behind a specific person on a specific shift.
Who asks, and why
The request can come from a few places. A client’s safety team reviewing their contractors. A principal contractor checking everyone who comes through the gate. A licensing or regulatory review. Or an incident, when everyone suddenly wants to know who was on site and what they were cleared to do.
The details vary, but the shape of the question rarely does. They want to see that you knew what the role required, that the worker held it, and that it was current when they worked.
What they actually ask for
1. Tickets
High risk work licences, forklift tickets, White Cards, working at heights and confined space tickets. For each one, an auditor typically wants:
- The ticket itself, or a clear copy of it
- The issue and expiry dates
- Confirmation it was current on the dates the worker was on site
The third point is the one that catches agencies out. A ticket on file is not the same as a ticket that was valid on the day.
2. Licences
Driver licences and any licence a role depends on. The questions are the same: do you hold a copy, when does it expire, and was it valid when the worker was placed in a role that needed it?
3. Inductions
Site inductions and client-specific inductions are easy to lose track of because they often sit outside the agency’s own records. An auditor will want to know which sites a worker was inducted for, when, and whether any were sent to a site they had not been inducted on.
4. The link between the credential and the shift
This is the part that turns a folder of documents into evidence. It means being able to show:
- What the role required
- Who was allocated to it
- That each person allocated held what the role required
- That they actually attended, at the right site
If those four things live in four different places, answering an audit means a day of reconciling spreadsheets, inboxes and text threads.
Where agencies come unstuck
The gaps are usually small and ordinary:
- A renewal happened, but the new card was never uploaded.
- An induction was done on site and never recorded.
- A replacement worker was found by phone at 5:40am and the check was skipped.
- The register says one thing and the roster says another.
None of these is negligence. They are what happens when the record and the decision sit in different systems.
What good labour hire compliance management looks like
If you want to be ready when someone asks, check your setup against these questions:
- Is every credential on the worker record? Tickets, licences and inductions, each with its expiry date and evidence, attached to the person.
- Does each role define what it needs? So eligibility is a fact of the shift, not something a coordinator has to remember.
- Are shifts allocated by credential? Only workers who hold what the role requires are offered it.
- Can you show who was on site? GPS clock-ins confirm the right person attended the right site.
- Can you see the day as it happens? A live day board showing who is booked, confirmed and on site.
If you can answer yes to all five, an audit request becomes a lookup rather than a project.
How RecruitOnline handles it
RecruitOnline was built by recruiters and has been operating since 2017. Tickets, licences and inductions sit on one worker record. Shifts are allocated by credential, so an expired ticket means no shift offer. The live day board shows who is confirmed, and GPS clock-ins show who is on site. The platform is ISO 27001 certified.
When a client or auditor asks, the credential, the shift and the attendance are already connected.
The short version
Auditors don’t want your policy. They want proof that the right person, with the right current credentials, worked the right shift. Keep the evidence on the worker record and let it drive the roster, and the proof is already there.
See how it works for labour hire teams on our Blue Collar page, or book a 30-minute demo. You can also start a 14-day free trial, no card needed to start.
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