Compliance is the part of labour hire that's invisible right up until it isn't. Get it right and nobody notices. Get it wrong — one worker on site without a current ticket — and it's a stop-work, a fine, a lost client, or in the worst case someone hurt. The good news: it's a tracking problem, and tracking problems can be solved.
What you're actually responsible for
As a labour hire provider you're placing workers on someone else's site, which means you carry real obligations: that each worker is entitled to work, holds the tickets and licences the role requires, has done the right inductions, and that their credentials are current on the day they're on site. Exactly which tickets depends on the work — but the principle is the same across every sector.
The credentials to track (and which expire)
One of the most common mistakes is treating every credential the same. Some expire on a fixed cycle, some need periodic renewal, and some don't expire at all. Knowing the difference is half of compliance.
Credentials that don't expire
The White Card (general construction induction) is the classic example — once you hold it, it doesn't expire. It can be cancelled or need replacing if lost, but there's no renewal date to chase. Treating it as "expiring" just creates noise; track it as held and move on.
Credentials that do expire — watch these
- First Aid and CPR — CPR is generally refreshed annually, first aid every few years.
- High-Risk-Work licences — forklift, EWP, rigging, scaffolding and similar tickets renew on a cycle.
- Site and client inductions — often valid only for a set period or a specific site, and frequently the thing that quietly lapses.
- Role-specific registrations and checks — AHPRA registration in healthcare, NDIS Worker Screening in disability support, security licences, RSA/RSG in hospitality, police checks and working-with-children checks where relevant.
The point isn't to memorise every cycle — it's to record an expiry date against every credential that has one, and have something watching those dates for you.
The four habits of compliance that holds up
1. Catalogue everything in one place
Every worker, every ticket, every induction, with the document attached and the expiry recorded. If the answer to "is this worker compliant for that job?" lives across spreadsheets, inboxes and memory, it isn't really an answer.
2. Watch expiries before they happen
Reminders should fire ahead of a lapse — to the worker and to your consultants — so renewals happen in time. Finding out a ticket expired last week, after the worker's already been on site, is the failure mode you're trying to design out.
3. Gate, don't just record
This is the difference between software that stores compliance and software that enforces it. A record tells you someone was non-compliant after the fact. A gate stops them being placed on a job that needs the ticket in the first place — no override in the rush to fill a shift.
A ticket you only discover expired at audit isn't compliance. It's a paper trail of the moment it went wrong.
4. Keep an audit trail
Every credential, reminder, renewal and block recorded — who, when, what. When a client or regulator asks you to prove compliance, the answer should be a click, not a frantic afternoon reassembling the story.
Why spreadsheets break
Spreadsheets don't watch dates, don't remind anyone, and don't stop a placement. They rely on a person remembering to look — and the day everyone's flat out is exactly the day nobody looks. They're fine as a list and useless as a safeguard.
How OnCrew handles it
OnCrew's compliance engine catalogues every ticket, watches every expiry, sends reminders before credentials lapse, and applies a hard gate so a non-compliant worker simply can't be matched or placed on a job that needs the ticket. It also feeds straight into Smart Fill, so the workers you're offered are already compliant — compliance stops being a separate chore and becomes part of how shifts get filled.
None of this removes your judgement or your obligations — you still confirm a registration against the source where that matters. What it removes is the silent failure: the lapse nobody caught.
