Find a secondment

Secondments are excellent opportunities to develop your career, learn new skills to take back to your organisation, improve your network, gain a new perspective, improve job satisfaction and appreciate different cultures and working environments.

Secondments are a great opportunity if you are keen to learn new skills and it is not obvious where you would gain those internally, it is also really useful if you are about to embark on a new project or stage of your career but there are elements you are keen to learn from outside the organisation. It is great for individual and organisation alike if you are exposed to new areas or aspects of work which will be invaluable to your role in your home organisation?

The length of a secondment varies and is usually decided between both parties. Ordinarily they last between 6 months and up to 23 months depending on the scope of the opportunity and the deliverables associated with the role.

You will firstly need to have a conversation with your line manager and/or your HR team who will advise you as to whether this is something that can be considered. If it is a possibility, then it is worth considering completing the secondee profile to help your thinking in terms of what a successful placement would look like for you, and talking through the opportunity form with your line manager. It is also worth giving us a call to discuss any of the questions you might have surrounding this.

This is a matter for agreement between both parties and will be discussed at the start of any potential secondment brokerage, the full benefits package usually forms part of this discussion and various situations are possible.

The agreement between both parties lays out any NDAs, contractual variations, duration, nature of the new role and subsequent line management responsibilities and duties, return to work and check in clauses and anything else that is particularly relevant to both parties.

There is a fair amount of personal upheaval with a secondment, you will be working with a new team, a different location and with different software and operational elements, and sometimes the role can change whilst you are in the secondment (both positively and negatively) and sometimes returning back to your home organisation and role can be challenging. However, if you are up for all of those elements, then it remains a brilliant way to learn new skills.