Employee secondments can benefit employers through developing good business relationships on a global level and sharing and enhancing employees' skills. At the same time, they can offer employees a valuable career development opportunity, with the chance to make new contacts and gain experience within a different working environment.

Secondment offers employers a number of benefits including:

  • A creative method of developing key and core staff
  • Gaining new skills from the relevant secondees
  • A way of retaining valuable skills and people
  • Positive PR in time of redundancies
  • The opportunity to gain fresh cultural insights
  • Expanding knowledge base

Career benefits to employees

The experience of a secondment could open an entirely new world of potential opportunities, thought processes and skill sets attributing to greater career advancement.

When you peel away the uncertainty of what to expect and step out of your comfort zone, this is potentially the most exciting experience of your career. Some of the benefits include:

Career development

A secondment is a chance for you to learn new skills and access new experiences and opportunities that your current role might not offer you. You might see a new side of your profession, get to try something entirely different from your normal work routine or you might have the chance to take on a role with more responsibility. All of this opens new potential pathways for your career and it’s great for your CV.

New challenges

Whether you are adapting to a new set of colleagues and working practices or a new language and culture, when you go on secondment you are likely to be forced out of your comfort zone. But that’s when you become acutely aware of your true capabilities. It is the perfect way to put all your professional skills to the test, recognise just how competent you are and find out what you need to learn very quickly.

New perspective

Some time spent working within a different member firm can be a real eye opener. A secondment is a great opportunity to lift the veil on what can sometimes seem like different working practices. That knowledge will stand you in good stead when you return to your company and in future roles.

Stronger network

You may have a wallet bursting with business cards and more LinkedIn contacts than you can count. However, when it comes to developing your professional network there really is no substitute for working alongside people and getting to know them on a personal level. The contacts you make may prove an invaluable resource further down the line.

Confidence boost

Remember that organisations don’t have secondment programmes entirely for the benefit of employees. The host company wants you to share your knowledge, experience, perspective and contacts to help them develop new ideas or new working practices and your own company gets an employee back with new knowledge, experiences, perspectives and contacts. A secondment can make you realise how valuable you are.

Conclusion

Secondment is a character building opportunity and a learning curve which provides valuable operational, managerial and relational experience which will benefit both the employer and employee immensely. In utilizing this opportunity effectively you will have a wealth of diverse resources to learn from and approach your career path with a renewed mind set, offering your employer “out of the box” solutions and a different perspective to dealing with challenges.

Joelene Chetty CA (SA)

Audit Manager, Durban

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