A Massachusetts staffing firm cited last year for a safety issue has now agreed to enhanced workplace safety and protections as part of a settlement with OSHA, and agency executives are holding it up as a case in point for other staffing providers.

“This is an example of what suppliers of temporary employees should be doing,” said Kim Stille, OSHA’s regional administrator for New England.

“Both host employers and staffing agencies have critical roles in complying with workplace health and safety requirements,” Stille said. “They share responsibility for ensuring worker safety and health. Each employer should consider hazards it can prevent and correct, and no employer — whether a temporary staffing agency or a client company — should ever send an employee into harm’s way.”

Marathon will provide comprehensive safety and health training for its account executives and sales representatives as part of the settlement. The Tyngsboro, Mass.-based staffing provider will also develop, with each of its clients, written contracts specifying their respective responsibilities to develop safety and health programs applicable to each workplace where Marathon will supply temporary employees.

OSHA cited the staffing provider in December 2014 for not providing hearing tests for its employees exposed to high noise levels while working on assignment at Concrete Systems Inc. in Hudson, N.H. Marathon was fined $7,000 for one serious violation.

“Marathon has much appreciated the opportunity to work with OSHA in resolving this one citation,” Marathon said in a statement. “It is pleased that once OSHA was apprised of the relevant facts, and of Marathon’s commitment to safety, we were able to enter into a settlement agreement. Marathon feels that OSHA has recognized the challenges that a temporary employment agency has with respect to workplace safety, and it was glad to have the benefit of its good advice and cooperation in enhancing its existing safety programming for the benefit of its employees across the country.”

OSHA said the terms of the settlement echo its recommended practice that temporary staffing agencies and host employers define and implement their respective roles designed to ensure compliance with applicable OSHA standards.

“This settlement ripples beyond this one case,” said Michael Felsen, the department's regional solicitor of labor for New England. “It is designed to enhance safety and health for hundreds of Marathon employees at numerous work sites in several states. Other suppliers and employers of temporary workers can and should take heed and ensure that all employees — permanent, short-term or day laborer — work in an environment that enables them to come home each day safe and healthy.”

Marathon Staffing Services Inc. operates in several states and is part of a Marathon Staffing network of connected offices that collectively place more than 15,000 temporary workers annually, according to OSHA.