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Career progression is enhanced

Accelerated skills growth

Lattice progression

Linear progression

Leadership roles

For a number of secondees, the lessons learnt and

development they experienced on secondment

resulted in a step change in performance back in

the workplace. This was often recognised both

personally (by the individual) and externally

(by their managers and colleagues), and led

to enhanced career progression. Secondees

nominated themselves for new challenges and

opportunities, moved into the next stage of their

career or were promoted to leadership roles.

Many secondees experienced

accelerated skills

growth

during secondment, which was effectively

applied in their professional lives post-secondment.

Trish Clancy explained: ‘The secondment was a

chance to build skills that I built naturally in my

job but it built them faster, particularly around

engaging with stakeholders, thinking through

the complexities of engaging with stakeholders

across a community with very different views

from each other and differences in the preferred

ways of communicating.’ Melissa Griggs similarly

experienced a faster rate of professional growth:

With a secondment you’re often thrown in the

deep end with minimal direction, you have to

self-lead, you have to do things that are out of

your comfort zone—and once you return to work,

the speed at which your skills increase and your

confidence increases is astronomical.

Bonnie Carter believes the skills she acquired while

on secondment allowed her to ‘blossom much

quicker with my sights set on where I want to go.’

Nina Kordic felt that the immersive nature of her

secondment—working with Indigenous partners in

community but also alongside other professionals—

contributed to her accelerated development:

Not only are you working away from home

and outside your own environment, you’re also

working with very different people at different

life stages and career stages, and from different

organisations and cultures, so when you’re

thrown together as a secondment group,

it adds to the momentum of development

you experience.

Secondees reported various types of career

growth post secondment. For some, it was

lattice

progression

(a lateral move to a different role), or

taking advantage of new opportunities or different

responsibilities within their organisation. Tracey

Benson said: ‘Since my secondment I’ve joined a

leadership learning circle, where a small group of

women meet once a month and focus on things like

your values and goals and career planning—I saw

it as a really good opportunity to stretch myself.’

Tracey reflected that her view of her career

trajectory had also broadened since her Jawun

experience. ‘I’d always thought I’d do something

related to my background in visual arts and never

really considered working on the policy side of

things, but that’s something I’ve thought about

since doing the secondment.’ Elise Marciano from

Woodside similarly viewed her career options

more broadly after her secondment:

Jawun showed me that as a commercial

professional I can work and add value in very

different areas. I’d studied economics and finance,

but I realised I didn’t need to confine myself to

working in those areas. Since returning from my

secondment, I have completed cross-postings

to investor relations and LNG marketing. Jawun

taught me to look more broadly for potential

career paths.

Nina Kordic was given greater responsibilities

in her role when her manager saw how she had

grown while on secondment. Carmen Ashcroft,

Senior Manager of Talent & Diversity at IAG,

explained: ‘Nina has become more confident and

she’s more at ease with stakeholder engagement

and management, to the point where part of the

big piece of work for my team this year has been a

rollout of a new talent framework and engagement

within IAG, and I recommended that Nina carry

out three rather large pieces of work for that.’

Other secondees have experienced

linear

progression

in their careers, in the form of

upward promotion or managing larger teams.

Chadi Khalifeh was promoted shortly after his

secondment. He reflected: ‘I think my career path

was accelerated by the secondment. I genuinely

believe that I’m able to apply greater leadership

skills because of this secondment—I’m better

at listening, understanding my stakeholders’

needs and applying empathy.’

CREATING VALUE FOR CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENT PARTNERS 23