• Planning overview
• Assessing staff needs
• Recruitment essentials
• Sourcing staff
  • Existing programmes
  • Pool
  • Surge mechanism
    • Emergency response team
    • Internal registers
    • Standby agreement
    • Secondments
    • External register
    • External recruitment
• Financial resources
• Staff turnover
• Competition and collaboration
• Accountability

• Case studies
• Resources
• Further reading

• People In Aid Code

Secondments

A secondment is a formal arrangement by which a person who is employed by one organisation or office actually works in another (host) organisation or office for a specified time. Financial arrangements vary from one secondment to another.

Possible advantages include:

• Opportunity for employee to broaden experience without changing employer
• Employer is able to reduce staffing level without losing staff permanently
• Employer is able to make a contribution to host organisation’s work.
• Host organisation is able to mobilise staff with key skills quickly
• Host organisation is able to increase staffing level without entering into a long term commitment.

There are also less honourable reasons

• The employer uses the secondment as a temporary means of getting rid of a difficult staff member
• Host organisation uses the secondment to avoid limits on "staff" imposed by donors or own management.
• Host organisation uses the secondment to save money by offering to reimburse employer’s lower costs as opposed to paying the secondee according to their own higher scales.