Secondments

Secondments are a great way to develop staff and broaden their skills, knowledge and wider understanding of the University. The University has a policy on Secondments, as well as range of helpful guidance on making them successful, available on the Staff Learning and Development pages on StaffNet. 

Actions for current line manager

In all cases before applying for a post on a secondment basis, staff must first discuss and agree this with you.

As the individual will return to their substantive post at the end of the secondment, you need to consider how you will cover their post for this period.

Actions for recruiting manager

You can advertise internal posts on a secondment basis - such as for cover for maternity leave or for a defined project. Staff can also apply for fixed term contracts on a secondment basis with their managers agreement.

Do check at shortlisting stage that the individual has agreed this with their manager. If you recruit a member of staff on a permanent contract to a secondment who hasn't got agreement with line manager to return at the end, you will have to try to redeploy them.

If the member of staff is already employed on a fixed term contract (ftc) you will need to establish when their current ftc will end. It may be:

a) that it exceeds the secondment period. Depending on the time periods involved they will either 

• need to return to their current post and will need their current manager's agreement to do this, or 
• you may need to consider whether you could postpone the start or extend the end date of the secondment to accommodate the length of their ftc.

b) that it will expire before the end of the secondment.

• In which case their ftc will in effect be extended to accommodate the secondment and you will need to manage the ending of their ftc in accordance with the Contracts of Employment Policy. 

Annual leave

Ideally the member of staff's annual leave for the year should be split proportionately between their substantive post and the secondment. However this is not always possible so some flexibility is required.

If it presents a problem you can discuss this with the member of staff and the substantive/recruiting manager to reach an agreement between yourselves that suits all parties.