We have a newly appointed manager who wishes to offer a secondment to 2 ‘hand picked’ members of his staff into a Trainee Supervisor role.

As a whole I think Secondments are a great opportunity for employees to be given the chance to further their career. However, I know that when this is announced to the other members within the department there will be some who will be unhappy at not being given the opportunity to apply for the posts.

At the moment we do not have anyone in the same or similar role within that department and there has not been anyone in that position before. As there is no Vacancy as such are we able to simply offer the secondment to these employees without advertising the vacancy for others to apply?

We have in the past advertised the same post in another department approx 9 months ago to give everyone a chance to apply, so I feel the same approach should be applied but my manager feels differently (he is only new to the department so the other vacancy was advertised before his time by the previous manager).

Joanne Jeffery