The scientific temp to perm agency approach: complete guide

For a recruitment agency operating in the scientific sector, our temporary staffing solution sees a variety of technicians and quality personnel walk through the doors of companies offering temporary vacancies. Seeing them leave, however, is less frequent than you may think.

This is due to the temp to perm approach. Also known as "temporary-to-permanent," the phrase refers to the recruitment strategy where candidates who were initially hired on a temporary basis, transfer onto permanent contracts with the hiring company. At some point during the contract length of the temp worker, the employer can decide to offer a permanent job to retain the member of staff. It’s that simple.

This approach offers several advantages tailored to the specific needs and complexities of the scientific industry. In this blog, we’ll detail the approach we’re all too familiar with, as well as the benefits temp to perm can bring to your business should you choose to fill your next vacancy this way!

The scientific temp to perm approach

Addressing the vacancy

For the temp to perm approach to be suitable, we must first help you address your science job and all the factors surrounding it. For example, if your job opening is due to maternity leave cover, sickness cover or an influx in demand of your business services, then a temp worker is an ideal choice.

Why? Because temporary staffing allows you to address your skill shortages or resource decreases quickly and efficiently. The temp-to-perm model allows companies to bring in skilled temporary staff immediately; this is the first stage.

Since the scientific sector often faces skills shortages in specific technical roles, it is often difficult to source the right permanent staff member in a turnaround time that doesn’t affect your business operations and productivity.

If your job criteria specifications are broader, or not specialised, then it’s likely that you can approach the vacancy with a typical permanent recruitment approach and find a great candidate. Temporary recruitment is here to help you access skills quickly!

This approach is also useful for companies that need to address fluctuating workloads, seasonal projects, or high-demand situations. For the R&D and pharmaceutical manufacturing sectors specifically, we often see many businesses turn to temps as they align perfectly with the very foundations of their businesses, from product development, clinical trials, or new production line launches.

Evaluating the candidate

Once you’ve determined your role is a great opportunity for temporary workers and our team of experienced temporary recruitment consultants have sourced, screened and placed the ideal candidate, now you can evaluate!

By this, we mean that the temporary aspect of the placement allows you to evaluate the technical skills, adaptability and cultural fit of the candidate.

For lab technicians and other highly technical roles, on-the-job performance is often a key component of evaluating your temporary team member. These aspects of a role are not easily assessed during an interview, and with the help of your real working environment, you can see exactly how your candidate delivers.

Employers can also confirm that the candidate’s level of training and experience meets the strict regulatory standards that could surround their role. With areas of GLP and GMP paramount to some operations; precision, compliance, conformity and adherence to protocols are a crucial determiner of a successful hire.

Mitigating the risk

Once you’ve evaluated your newest temp worker and are happy with their performance and match with your company, the temp to perm model is activated. You can liaise with our recruiters to discuss how you’d like to proceed with a permanent offering to the temp work and we’ll arrange the rest.

Essentially, this approach removes the risk associated with hiring. Employers are not immediately committed to a long-term contract, which is a great benefit in laboratory-based roles where your operations, compliance and productivity are crucial aspects of day-to-day revenue.

You have the flexibility to assess a candidate’s technical proficiency, whether that’s with laboratory equipment handling, high throughput targets or even compliance documentation.

We keep in consistent communication with all temporary workers, as our staffing solution is entirely outsourced. This means that you don’t need to manage their payroll, annual leave or sicknesses. By speaking regularly with temps, we can gauge exactly how they feel about their current role and help both the candidate and client to seize a temp to perm transition should it be suitable.

Why is the temp to perm approach successful?

At Network Scientific, we’ve been operating a temporary staffing solution for almost two decades. We’re confident when we say the reason temp to perm works so successfully is because of our unique, caring and ethical candidate search techniques.

By investing the right values at this point in the hiring process, we’re already on our way to ensuring that the candidate we source is a culture fit, has the specific skill sets and is essentially ideal for the vacancy available. How do we do this? Let’s find out!

Our talent pool

We have an active candidate network of over 20,000 individuals, many of which are open to temporary work. Our recruitment agency will source and screen candidates who meet your specific skillset requirements.

We’re well-versed in working with temp QC (quality control) technicians, research associates, analytical chemists, food laboratory technicians, QA (quality assurance) specialists, GMP specialists, senior researchers and general laboratory technicians.

As a specialised lab recruitment agency, we’ve also placed more niche temp vacancies such as virologists, toxicologists, EHS (environmental health and safety) officers, production technicians, clinical trial coordinators and forensic scientists, to name a few.

Sourcing and screening

What makes our agency different is our culture fit evaluations. We always strive to build long-term partnerships with our clients, which means we ultimately know your business like we know our own, this makes it much easier to recognise the chemistry between candidates and potential employers.

When we screen candidates, we conduct all of the usual recruitment compliance and right-to-work checks, but we also strive to understand how the potential working relationship would be. Only putting the candidates, we believe to be a great match in front of you.

Temporary vacancies are typically structured around a specific timeframe, such as 3-6 months, during which the candidate you’ve selected will work on a specific project or within a wider team. Both of these aspects are openly communicated during the screening program, and it is this transparency that helps up to understand the expectations from both employee and employer on this potential hire.

Onboarding and ongoing management

As the temporary staffing agency, it is our job to facilitate the onboarding of the temporary worker in terms of administration and check-ins. We will contact the candidate often to ensure they’re happy with the role and all recent training provided by you, the employer. We’ll also do the same for you, having regular catch-ups to check how you feel the temporary hire is evolving.

For many of the scientific roles we handle on a temporary basis, ongoing check-ins usually centre around feedback on the candidate’s ability to follow lab protocols, handle data accurately, and work in compliance with GMP/GLP 

It’s at this point where the relationships built across the board can help us determine if you are satisfied, and the successfulness of the candidate transitioning to a permanent role.

Temp to perm, is it right for you?

In addition to the benefits we’ve already discussed, the beauty of the temp to perm approach is that as an employer, you can reap all the benefits of hiring a temporary worker as well as the benefits of potentially retaining a fantastic addition to your business. 

Temp workers are an ideal way to hire fast, they reduce the time needed to bring in talent. By screening them first, we also ensure that you’re only speaking to potential hires who will ensure compliance with regulatory standards and can deliver on the skills required. Once they’ve commenced with their temporary contract, you then have access to a period of time to essentially ‘try before you buy’, assessing various aspects of suitability in a practical setting.

The initial value of laboratory temp workers is undisputed, the ongoing value they can bring to your team if they transition to a permanent role, however, is up to you!

Start your temp to perm journey the right way, and partner with Network Scientific Recruitment!