Field notes › Compliance
Fatigue management plans in labour hire: whose plan applies?
A fatigue management plan is the written record of how a business finds what could make its workers fatigued, what it does to prevent that, and how it checks those controls are working. When a labour hire worker is supplied to a host, the plan has no single owner. The labour hire provider and the host both hold a duty for that worker, each to the extent they can influence it, and they have to consult and coordinate with each other. The provider also carries one part the host can't see: the worker's run of work across every client.
What a fatigue management plan is, and what the guidance calls it
"Fatigue management plan" is how most sites and safety teams talk, but the phrase isn't used in Safe Work Australia's model Code of Practice on managing the risk of fatigue at work. What the Code describes is a risk management process: identify the hazards, assess the risks, control them, then maintain and review the controls, all in consultation with workers. A plan is the written version of that process for your business. A policy is narrower. It sets expectations, such as how a worker reports fatigue or tells you about a second job.
The Code is blunt about policies on their own. It says they should not be relied on to manage the risk of fatigue, and that a WHS policy has to be reflected in other places, including employment contracts, travel arrangements, project schedules and shift scheduling software. A labour hire firm with a tidy fatigue policy in the induction pack and a roster that ignores it has a document, not a plan.
A word on standing. A model Code has no legal effect in a state or territory until it is approved there, and Safe Work Australia says to check with your local WHS regulator whether a particular Code has been approved. Approved codes are not law, but courts can treat them as evidence of what is known about a hazard and what is reasonably practicable. The fatigue Code also notes that some industries have their own fatigue-specific legal requirements, including mining, rail, heavy vehicles, civil aviation, offshore oil and gas, and maritime. What follows reflects the guidance as at September 2026. Whether and how it applies to your business is a question for your regulator or adviser.
Whose plan applies when a worker is supplied to a host?
Both, and that's the part most templates skip. The Code explains that under the WHS Act more than one person can hold the same duty at the same time. Each keeps responsibility for meeting it to the extent they can influence and control the matter, and each must consult, cooperate and coordinate with the others so far as is reasonably practicable. Safe Work Australia's page on fatigue duties says businesses must consult, cooperate and coordinate with other businesses they work with where both have duties to manage fatigue.
The fatigue Code gives labour hire its own example. Where a business provides on-hire workers for shift work, the labour hire and host businesses both have a duty of care, and they must work together to identify whether fatigue may be a risk, considering the demands of the job, shift rosters and working hours. Then comes the sentence every labour hire owner should read twice: the labour hire business "must consider the cumulative fatigue arising from all the different workplaces the worker is sent to and agree on arrangements to manage the risks of fatigue with each business."
In practice the host's plan governs the work on its site, because the host decides shift length on the day, start times, the tasks, the conditions, the camp and the bus from the airport. The provider's plan has to cover what the host can't see. Did the worker come straight off another client's swing? How many hours have they done this fortnight across every booking, and what travel sits either side? Have they told you about a second job? Neither plan replaces the other. Where the two differ, working to the stricter one and writing down what you agreed with the host is the defensible position.
The Code's manufacturing case study shows what an agreement can look like. A business running around the clock with a mix of employees and labour hire workers set limits on consecutive day and night shifts, monitored weekly hours for each worker, and agreed a limit on working hours for contractors with the labour hire company. That conversation belongs at the start of a contract, not after an incident. The wider question of who carries what when a supplied worker is on site is covered in who's responsible when a non-compliant worker gets on site.
What a fatigue management plan should cover
People search for a fatigue management plan template, a policy template, a construction template. A template copied from a builder or a hospital won't describe your roster, your hosts or your travel. What you can do is build the plan around the parts the Code covers. The table maps them to sections of a plan, with the contents taken from the Code.
| Plan section | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Scope | Every worker, including labour hire workers, on every shift |
| Consultation | How workers and HSRs are consulted, and how you coordinate with each host |
| Hazards | Work hours and shift design, tasks and environment, individual factors |
| Risk assessment | Duration, frequency and severity of exposure, and how hazards combine |
| Hours and shift design | Shift length, rest between shifts, days in a row, night work, notice |
| Travel and accommodation | Commutes, travel times, fly-in fly-out days, sleeping conditions |
| Reporting fatigue | How a worker reports it, and a non-punitive response |
| Other work | Telling you about second jobs, with no lower standard for casuals |
| Training and supervision | Training for workers and for the people who assign shifts |
| Review | When controls are checked, such as before a change or when a new hazard appears |
| Records | Hours, breaks, travel, consultation outcomes and a risk register |
Two rows need more care in labour hire than anywhere else. The consultation row isn't only about your own crew. It includes the host, and ideally a named contact at each host who hears from you when a worker has come off other work, and who tells you when a shift is extended on site. The other work row is where casual crews fall through. The Code says policies on second jobs shouldn't limit workers to less than standard full-time hours however many jobs they hold, and shouldn't give casual or part-time workers a lower safety standard. For a supplied worker, your bookings for other clients are the other work, and you already know about them.
Hours, nights and rest in the controls section
The controls section is where a plan gets specific, and where the Code gives its clearest figures. They are recommendations, not legal limits, and the right figure depends on the other hazards present. For shift design, the Code suggests workers have no less than 12 hours between shifts, don't work more than five days in a row, get at least one full day off a week, and have at least two consecutive nights of sleep opportunity between shift blocks. For night work, it suggests not rostering more than three successive night shifts and giving at least 24 hours' notice. Where the risk of or from fatigue is high, it says to consider restricting shifts to no more than 8 hours and avoiding overtime.
A swing on a remote site puts more than five days in a row on site by design, so the plan has to say how you handle it: what extra controls apply, who approves a pattern outside your usual limits, and how your limits and the host's fit together. The Code is clear that a business's duty isn't removed or reduced by hours set in a contract, award or enterprise agreement, by a worker's preference for a pattern, or by their willingness to work extra hours. A worker saying yes to a back-to-back swing doesn't settle the question. Building rosters against these figures is covered in fatigue management for shift workers.
Travel, commuting and accommodation
For crews working away, this section matters as much as hours. The Code lists extended commutes, travel between midnight and 6 am, blocks of remote work such as fly-in fly-out, and accommodation that doesn't allow for sleep and recovery as fatigue hazards. It says a business's duty may not specifically extend to driving to or from work, but it may need to manage the risk where long commutes leave workers fatigued at work, and it may have a duty where a worker becomes fatigued at work and puts other road users at risk on the drive home. It gives a remote workplace with no nearby accommodation as an example where long commutes are a reasonably foreseeable hazard.
In labour hire the travel is often booked by the provider while the work is set by the host, so this is another place the two plans have to meet. Write down who books flights, how soon a first shift can start after a travel day, and how the drive home after the last night shift is handled. The Code's fly-in fly-out case study lists buses between the airport and site, recovery time between shift cycles, and accommodation with blackout curtains and sound proofing among one company's controls.
Records that prove the plan was used
The Code suggests keeping records of working hours, breaks and travel, and recording the risk management process and its outcomes, including consultation with workers. It notes a WHS inspector may ask to see WHS records, and that without a written record you'll need to show by other means how you met your duties. It also warns that hours you can only see one personnel file at a time limit how quickly you can spot fatigue risks, and suggests looking at differences between rostered and actual hours, and at shift swaps. A risk register, which is usually what people mean by a fatigue management register, is the Code's suggested way to list the hazards, the action needed, who is responsible and by when.
For a labour hire firm, the roster is often the only record of a worker's full run across clients. Mustr keeps every client site on one timeline with a lane per site, so the office sees a worker's shifts across all clients, and anyone locked into another site that week shows greyed out with the clashing site and dates. It keeps an audit trail of who changed what, and when. It does not apply fatigue rules. Those are on the public roadmap, so for now the judgement about whether a pattern is safe sits with the people building the roster and the plan they work to.
Questions people ask
What is a fatigue management policy?
A fatigue management policy sets expectations, such as how workers report fatigue, what happens when they do, and whether they need to tell you about second jobs. Safe Work Australia's model Code says policies help set clear expectations but should not be relied on alone to manage fatigue. Where you have one, it must be developed in consultation with workers and any health and safety representatives, and every worker needs to know what it expects of them.
Is there a fatigue management plan template for construction?
The model Code of Practice doesn't include a fill-in plan template, but it sets out the risk management steps and a risk management chart of hazards and example controls. That gives you the structure for a plan. A construction plan should add the site's own hazards, such as physically demanding work in the heat or night works, and the hours agreed with the host or principal contractor.
What is a fatigue management register?
It's usually a risk register for fatigue, listing each hazard, the action needed, who is responsible and when it is due. The model Code suggests a risk register as one way to track controls and their review. For a labour hire firm it helps to note which host each control was agreed with.
What does Safe Work Australia say about fatigue management?
Safe Work Australia describes fatigue as a state of physical, mental or emotional impairment that can develop over the short or long term. Under WHS laws based on the model laws, a business has to eliminate or minimise fatigue risks so far as is reasonably practicable, and workers have to take reasonable care for their own health and safety. Its model Code of Practice gives the practical detail, but a model Code only has legal effect in a state or territory that has approved it.
If you'd like to see a worker's shifts across every client site on one timeline, with the audit trail behind it, book a demo.