31 July 2023

The Public Service needs people with experience across a range of sectors, roles, service delivery and operational environments.

Taking up opportunities outside of your usual role can provide new experiences, perspectives, and development.  The Workforce Mobility Hub (The Hub) came into existence through the COVID-19 crisis and was very successful in quickly moving public servants to meet the government’s critical needs.  

Now we’re evolving the way we mobilise public servants across the Public Service during non-crisis times to address government priorities and critical response and to support public servants’ career development. 

He pāronga mō te kaimahi ratonga tūmatanui Information for public servants

If you’re interested in broadening your experiences across the Public Service, talk to your recruitment team and your manager about opportunities that suit your aspirations and capabilities.

You can now see current temporary opportunities, including secondments and short-term roles for public servants in one place on jobs.govt

He pāronga mō te kaimahi pūmanawa tangata Information for HR practitioners

The Hub provides a brokering service for agencies seeking critical workforce resources, working with agency-nominated workforce leads. If you don’t know who your agency workforce lead is, contact deployment@publicservice.govt.nz.

We have guidance to support public service recruiters. This guidance includes process models and links to relevant legislation. This document will continue to be reviewed and updated. Recruitment guidance for public service recruiters.(PDF, 896 KB)

We have also published recruitment guidance as part of a suite of guidance designed to help remove any bias or discrimination from remuneration and people policies and practices. Following this guidance will help to close pay gaps and create fairer workplaces for all employees. Agencies and Crown entities apply this guidance to help achieve the goals of Kia Toipoto(PDF, 2.8 MB).

Secondments

Secondments provide opportunities for kaimahi to gain work experience and professional development and enhance connections and understanding between agencies.

Secondments can be used to quickly move skills and expertise around the system to address government priorities, and in times of crisis, can be necessary to ensure public services continue to deliver essential services and critical responses needed by those in impacted communities.

For home agencies, secondments enable kaimahi to build new skills and develop competencies working in a different environment, that they will bring back to their home agency at the conclusion of the secondment.

Secondment agreement template

We have developed a secondment agreement template agencies can use for inter-agency secondments or when you are looking to replace or update an existing template in use.

Secondment Agreement Template(DOCX, 84 KB)

Guide for using the template

This document is a template only and must not be relied on as legal advice.

This document sets out suggested terms and conditions for secondment agreements. When using this document, agencies need to consider the needs of the business, requirements of the role, and any needs of the Secondee and other party to the agreement. This consideration should inform amendments to the template to meet the needs of agencies.

Agencies should carefully consider any specific circumstances of the secondment, legal obligations, risks, policies, security, employment considerations and how they may need to adapt or add to the template in consideration of these.

Users of this template should:

  • not ask or require employees to relinquish their substantive position when taking up an internal or external secondment,
  • carefully consider the appropriate term of the secondment,
  • consider each term and whether it meets the business needs of the agency and requirements of the role,
  • add any additional terms where applicable and appropriate for the secondment,
  • consult with organisations’ corporate teams such as legal and human resources if you are seeking to use the template or tailoring the template for your agency,
  • complete highlighted fields, delete drafting notes and any sections and clauses that are not relevant to your agency,
  • note content controls are used throughout the document for the following fields: Secondee name, commencement and completion date, Secondment position, Substantive position, Home Manager name, title, and group and Host Manager name, title and group. Updating these fields anywhere in the document will automatically update the field throughout the document. These content controls may also be removed.
  • add appropriate security classifications before use, for example ‘Staff-in-Confidence’.

If an issue arises due to the host and home agency having different or conflicting needs, they should endeavour to accommodate each agency’s needs by amending the agreement to the extent possible to resolve the issue. Where the home and host agency’s terms are incompatible, the host agency’s term(s) should generally apply.

Working in the Public Service

People sign up to the Public Service because they want to make a difference. Working in the Public Service will give you opportunities, challenges and the ability to develop an exciting career. 

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