Temp shifts
Work the days you want, at a rate you knew before you claimed
Temping is how most people on this platform start, and for a lot of them it is how they carry on. Here is the whole thing: who employs you, what you are paid, when it arrives, what happens when something goes wrong, and what you give up.
A shift, from the notification to the money
Six steps, and none of them involve an interview.
Tuesday
7:12
Shift near you
Dental Hygienist · Thu 8:00 to 4:00 · 6 km
One shift, end to end
A shift within travel distance of you appears
You set the roles you cover, the days you are free, and how far you are willing to go. Shifts that fit come to you rather than you refreshing a board.
The money
Nobody is negotiating and nobody is guessing
WORKFORCE sets one rate per category, per city, and publishes it. An office cannot pay under it and cannot offer over it to jump a queue. You see the number before you claim, and it is the same number the person who claimed the shift before you saw.
This matters more than it sounds. The alternative, which is how most private temping works, is that your pay depends on how comfortable you are asking for money at seven in the morning from somebody who is short-staffed and stressed. That system does not reward the best clinician. It rewards the most confident negotiator, and those are not the same person.
Check your own city and role. The rates on the right are the ones an office sees when it posts.
See what you’ll earn
We set temp rates, so you know the number before you claim a shift.
This is the rate WORKFORCE pays for this category. The lower figure is a regular shift and the higher one is a weekend. Offices don't set temp rates.
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Who employs you
The part most people do not think about until it matters
On a temporary placement you are our employee, not the practice’s. Four consequences follow from that, and they are the real difference between temping through a platform and temping off a group chat.
We are your employer on the shift
Not the practice you are covering. That is what makes a temp shift a temp shift rather than a very short job, and it is why a run of Fridays at one office does not quietly become an employment relationship you did not agree to.
Deductions come off at source
You are not setting aside a percentage of every shift and hoping you guessed right. Source deductions are taken before the money reaches you, the same as any employed position.
One employment slip at year end
Covering every office you worked, rather than one from each of the eleven practices you covered in March. This is the single most underrated part of temping through a platform instead of privately.
Insurance is in place for the placement
Your registration and insurance are verified before you are scheduled and kept current, so an unfamiliar practice is not asking you for documents in the corridor at ten to eight.
What you actually control
You set the distance
Nothing reaches you for an office you would not realistically drive to. A hygienist in Surrey does not need to be told about a Tuesday in Kelowna.
You are never obliged to take anything
There is no minimum, no quota, and nobody calls you to ask why you turned something down. Claim what suits you and ignore the rest.
Cancelling is allowed, and notice matters
Things happen and you can cancel. How much notice you give is the part that counts, because the other end of a late cancellation is a practice with a full book and an empty column.
You can keep a permanent job while you do it
Plenty of people temp one day a week around a permanent role, or on their days off. Nothing here asks you to choose.
Walking into a practice you have never seen
This is the part people are actually nervous about, and almost nobody writes it down. Four things that make the first hour go better.
What to expect on your first temp shift- Ask for the walkthrough before the first patient
- Sterilization, your operatory, where the emergency kit lives, and how their charting software is set up. Every reasonable office expects this and the good ones offer it before you ask.
- Find out who to ask
- One named person you can go to when something is not where you expected. Knowing that at eight o'clock saves you asking four different people at ten.
- Expect to be slower than usual
- In a room you have never seen, with instruments in the wrong drawer, you will be. It improves fast, because by your fifth unfamiliar operatory you have a routine for orienting yourself in one.
- Tell us if a shift was bad
- Offices are reviewed after shifts and the ones that treat professionals badly lose access. You are not obliged to go back anywhere, and you do not need a reason.
Four things temping is not
We would rather you decided this with your eyes open than discovered it in month three. None of these are reasons not to temp. They are reasons to choose it deliberately.
The hours are not guaranteed
Availability depends on your area, your role, and the time of year. Some weeks have more in them than others, and anybody promising you a full book is telling you something they cannot know.
You are the new person, most days
New room, new team, new software, new coffee machine. Some people find that energising and some find it exhausting, and it is worth knowing which one you are before you build a year around it.
You carry your own continuity
No one office is tracking your development or putting you on a course. If you want your skills to go somewhere specific, that is yours to steer, which is freedom and work at the same time.
It is not the same as a permanent job
A permanent role comes with things a series of day rates does not, and whether that trade is worth it depends entirely on what you want this year to look like. Plenty of people temp for a while and then stop, on purpose.
Temping is not always the destination
For some people it is the whole plan. For others it is how they find the practice they end up staying at, or how they keep working around the rest of their life.
Set up a profile and look at what is there
Add your registration, the roles you cover, and how far you will travel. Looking at what is available in your area does not commit you to any of it.