Maternity Leave Contracts—Fear Not!

Over the years, I have spoken about the difficulty in finding quality employees.  In the post-COVID era, this proves to be an even more arduous task.  At present, our office is in search of someone who is able to fit into our team for a maternity leave position.  How hard can it be?  Monumentally difficult. 

The fact that it is a limited contract makes potential candidates uncomfortable, simply because of the uncertainty at the end of the contract.  The way I see it, the idea of permanence is mostly a fallacy, because an employment agreement is a contract between two parties, not a prison sentence.  At any point, anyone can leave a permanent position, hopefully with proper notice, or be terminated, also with proper notice.  Having an expiry date is not always a bad thing; especially if the position is not a perfect fit but suitable for the moment.  What it affords the staff member, however, is an opportunity to bolster one’s resume, and to access a network of the dentist’s own colleagues via a strong personal reference, which is always more favourable than one from a stranger.  Our last maternity leave position did in fact become a permanent position when the staff member on leave could not return.  What I am trying to say is, no one can predict the future.  Candidates may very well be leaving good opportunities on the table by filtering out job openings that don’t have the correct labels right off the bat.  I recently interviewed a candidate who told me that some offices will deliberately deceive candidates about the nature of the position, only to have them find out afterwards that it is actually a maternity leave position.  I will never do that, but am hopeful that the right person with some extra faith will come along soon.  Is that you?