What should a buyer ask without pretending one questionnaire fits every order?
Use a modular set of prompts tied to the event's role, location, venue, timing, and risk. Ask the agency to identify the legal entities, worker employment or engagement arrangement, payroll and record responsibilities, insurance evidence, relevant role experience, instruction process, confirmation milestones, timekeeping, absence response, subcontractors, and change authority. Treat answers as evidence for review, not an automatic score. Add jurisdiction- and role-specific questions from qualified legal, tax, safety, privacy, or insurance owners. The accepted order should resolve the fields that matter for that event.
Authority to review: OSHA — Protecting Temporary Workers
Which entity and worker-relationship prompts reveal the operating model?
Ask: What legal entity signs the client agreement? Which entity will supply and employ or engage workers in this market? Are other agencies, payroll firms, or subcontractors involved? Who pays workers, withholds taxes where applicable, maintains employment records, and handles workers' compensation? How will changes to the supplying entity be disclosed?
Then request the documents relevant to the proposed configuration. Do not infer a company-wide model from one salesperson's answer, and do not use a W-2 or contractor label as a substitute for review of the facts and governing law.
Authority to review: IRS — Employee (common-law employee)
Which delivery prompts connect the proposal to the real event?
Ask how the agency translates roles, quantities, shift windows, reporting points, attire, equipment, credentials, and instructions into an order. Ask when it identifies the assigned supplier, what confirmation milestones it uses, how it communicates constraints, and who may approve scope or rate changes.
For absences, ask about reporting, substitution criteria, client updates, and prioritization. The answer should describe an operational process without representing an uncertain fill outcome as certain.
Authority to review: IRS — Employee (common-law employee)
Which insurance, safety, and record prompts need specialist review?
Ask which policies apply to the assigned entity and work, what evidence and endorsements are available, how incidents are reported, and how the agency and host coordinate hazards, training, and protective equipment. Give the actual work description to the insurance and safety reviewers.
Ask what time, payroll, instruction, credential, incident, and communication records will exist; who can access or export them; and how corrections work. Retention and disclosure requirements may vary, so route the answers to the responsible specialist.
Authority to review: OSHA — Protecting Temporary Workers
How should a buyer turn answers into a decision?
Create a short decision record with the proposed configuration, evidence received, unresolved facts, reviewers, conditions, and accepted terms. Explain whether an issue is a legal requirement, insurance condition, safety need, venue rule, operational preference, or commercial choice. Those categories should not be blurred.
Refresh affected questions when the role, jurisdiction, supplier, contract, service tier, schedule, or worksite changes. This adaptable approach is more useful than claiming TempGuru or any other buyer uses one fixed public vetting screen for every agency.
Authority to review: OSHA — Protecting Temporary Workers
Official references for this brief
What else should event buyers ask?
- Is this a fixed agency-vetting checklist?
- No. These are adaptable prompts. Select and expand them based on the service, role, location, venue, timing, data, safety, insurance, and legal questions in the proposed order.
- Authority to review: OSHA — Protecting Temporary Workers
- Does a clear W-2 answer finish the review?
- No. It identifies an important operating fact, but buyers should still verify the employing entity, responsibilities, insurance, records, worksite duties, contract, and jurisdiction-specific requirements.
- Authority to review: OSHA — Protecting Temporary Workers
- Should buyers ask for a roster before scope approval?
- Ask for order-specific capacity evidence and confirmation milestones after defining the role, date, location, shift, and requirements. A generic roster does not prove availability.
- Authority to review: IRS — Employee (common-law employee)
- What if the agency uses subcontractors?
- Require disclosure of the entities and their roles, employment arrangements, insurance evidence, responsibilities, and change process. Review the actual chain rather than assuming subcontracting is inherently acceptable or unacceptable.
- Authority to review: U.S. Department of Labor — Fact Sheet 13
- Who should review the answers?
- Route legal, tax, insurance, safety, privacy, payroll, and venue questions to qualified owners. Procurement can coordinate evidence while keeping specialist conclusions within their scope.
- Authority to review: OSHA — Protecting Temporary Workers