Temp staffing: your licenses and terms, stated for clients and workers

Why a register entry does more than a badge

A badge that says "licensed" is the agency's own claim. The issuing authority's public register is a page the agency did not write, stating the same fact with the same number, and a client's procurement team or a worker deciding whether to sign up can open it. It is also the rare mention of the agency that the agency cannot word for itself. Stated on your licenses page and on the register, a license gives an answer two sources that agree, one of which you did not write.

The names have to line up. A license names a legal entity, which may not be the name on your sign or your homepage. In our audit of 9,483 small business websites (40 trades, 90 metros, late August to early September 2026), 43.1% were inconsistent about who and where they are across their own three main pages; the figure covers the whole sample, and the audit has no staffing cut. A licenses page that says "[legal name], trading as [trading name]" joins the register to the site, so both plainly describe one entity.

Nothing on this page says what any jurisdiction requires. Whether placing temporary workers where you operate needs a license, what a posting or a terms page must state, and what a worker is owed are questions for your counsel or the regulator, and the answers differ between countries, states, provinces and emirates. What follows is how to state the facts the agency already holds in writing, on three pages:

Writing each license the way the issuing authority writes it

List every license and registration the agency holds, and nothing it does not. For each one, copy the authority's own words rather than a summary: the name of the license or registration exactly as issued, the number, the legal name of the holder, where it is valid, its dates, and the authority as it names itself. Where the authority keeps a public lookup, link it: the agency's own entry where entries have stable addresses, the search page where they do not. A licenses page in that shape, with brackets for your details:

Licenses and registrations

[Legal name], trading as [trading name]

[Name of the license or registration, exactly as issued]
Number: [number]
Issued by: [authority, as it names itself]
Valid in: [country, state, province or emirate]
Covers: [the activity, in the authority's words]
Valid from [date] to [date]
Check it: [link to the authority's public lookup]

[Company registration], [registry, as it names itself]: [number]

Checked against each register on [date] by [role].

A license held by a parent company or by one branch says which entity holds it and where. A registration issued per office goes under that office's address, not only on the head office page. When a license lapses, the page stops claiming it that day, and a renewal's new dates go up as soon as they are issued.

Words such as "certified", "approved" or "accredited" go on the page only where the authority's own document uses them, and always with the issuer and the number beside them. A reader can check a number against a register; an adjective gives them nothing to check.

The client's terms: billing, the minimum booking and conversion

A client's questions about temporary staff turn on money and commitment, and your terms of business already answer them. The client page states the parts a client needs before signing, in the same words as the terms, with a link to the full document. Written as sentences a client could quote back to you:

• How temps are billed: "Temporary staff are billed at an hourly rate per worker for the hours on approved timesheets, invoiced [weekly], payable within [number] days. The rate covers [what your terms say it covers]."
• Overtime, nights and holidays: "Hours over [threshold] and shifts on [days] are billed at [rule]."
• The minimum booking: "The minimum booking is [hours] per shift and [shifts or days] per assignment."
• Cancellations: "A shift canceled less than [hours] before it starts is billed at [rule]."
• Temp-to-hire conversion: "You may hire a temporary worker directly after [period] on assignment with no fee, or earlier for a fee of [rule]."
• A worker who does not suit: "Tell [role] within [time] of the first shift, and [what happens next]."

Whether a conversion fee is permitted, how it may be worked out, and what the hourly rate has to include are points on which the rules differ by jurisdiction, so counsel settles the wording before it goes up. Where a client's signed agreement departs from the standard terms, the page says that the agreement governs.

The worker's terms: pay, shifts and who picks up the phone

A worker's questions are about the next shift and the next pay day. The worker page answers them from the same terms, in plain sentences, and it is a page of its own, so neither side reads past the other's terms to find its own. Six lines, in the order a worker needs them:

• When and how pay arrives: "You are paid [weekly] on [day] by [method] for the hours worked in [period], once [who] approves your timesheet."
• What the pay statement shows: "Each payslip lists [the items your terms name]."
• How shifts are offered: "We offer shifts by [text, app or phone], with at least [hours] notice where the client gives it. To turn a shift down, [how]."
• If a shift is canceled: "If a client cancels less than [hours] before your shift, [what you receive or are told]."
• Who to call: "[Role] at [number], [hours]; outside those hours, [number]."
• A problem at a site: "Report it to [role] at [number], and [what the agency does next]."

What pay has to include, how soon it has to arrive, what a payslip has to show and what a worker is owed for a canceled shift are set by rules that differ by jurisdiction. The page states the agency's own terms, names the body a worker can contact where your counsel says one applies, and leaves the rules to that body and to counsel. Like a posting, the worker page describes the work and never who may apply in terms of a protected characteristic.

Questions for counsel before the three pages go live

Each of these has an answer that depends on where you operate. Get it in writing, and keep it with the page it concerns:

• Does placing temporary workers here need a license or a registration, and which of them must the site show?
• What must a posting, the client terms and the worker terms each state, and in whose words?
• Is a conversion fee permitted, and on what terms?
• What must a pay statement show, and how soon after the work must pay arrive?
• Who employs the worker during an assignment, and may the pages say so?
• May the authority's name or mark appear on the site, and in what form?

Markup that repeats the licenses page

The markup says nothing the page does not. On the agency's EmploymentAgency node, which schema.org places under LocalBusiness, each license can be a Certification attached with hasCertification: its name as the authority words it, issuedBy for the authority, certificationIdentification for the number, validIn for the jurisdiction and expires for the end date. schema.org's definition of Certification counts licenses as a form of credential, and it gives the business registration a property of its own, companyRegistration, which takes a Certification naming the body that issued it.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "EmploymentAgency",
  "name": "[Trading name]",
  "legalName": "[Legal name]",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "telephone": "[one phone number]",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "[street]",
    "addressLocality": "[city]",
    "addressRegion": "[state or province]",
    "postalCode": "[code]",
    "addressCountry": "[country code]"
  },
  "companyRegistration": {
    "@type": "Certification",
    "name": "[Company registration, as the registry words it]",
    "certificationIdentification": "[number]",
    "issuedBy": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "[Registry, as it names itself]" }
  },
  "hasCertification": [{
    "@type": "Certification",
    "name": "[License name, exactly as issued]",
    "certificationIdentification": "[number]",
    "issuedBy": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "[Authority, as it names itself]" },
    "validIn": { "@type": "AdministrativeArea", "name": "[where it is valid]" },
    "expires": "[YYYY-MM-DD]",
    "url": "[the authority's public lookup entry]"
  }]
}

Put it in JSON-LD on the licenses page, and change it on the same day as the text. Google's general structured data guidelines ask for structured data that is up to date and describes what readers can see, and they say that correct markup still does not guarantee any feature will appear. The markup is a second copy of the licenses page, not a claim of its own.

Keeping the licenses and the terms current

1. Give one person the licenses page, the client terms and the worker terms.
2. Put every renewal date in a calendar, and on each one check the page and the markup against the register.
3. When terms change, date the new version ("effective [date]") and keep the previous version on file, so an old copy quoted anywhere can be traced.
4. Tell workers about a change to pay days or shift rules through the channel they already use, as well as on the site.
5. When you open an office or start placing workers in a new jurisdiction, add its registrations to the page the day they are issued, and not before.

The same dates are what an agency needs when it reads its AI answers, since a change in what an answer says about your terms can only be set against a dated change on the site. The measurement is set out in AI visibility for recruiters, and what the rest of an agency's site states is on the recruiting and staffing overview.