Secondments & Sabbaticals

In the age of the ‘agile’ workplace more and more companies are exploring flexible working arrangements for their workforce. Ranging from part-time and remote work through to sabbatical and secondment initiatives, these arrangements may be driven by:

Employee reward and retention
Overcapacity issues in relation to the economic downturn
Diversity & inclusion
Cyclical and seasonal variation in demand and workload

AAB’s Emerging World Secondment Programme provides companies with an inspirational and well structured ‘flexible working’ opportunity to offer to selected employees which can help the company to manage costs and retain talent through the downturn.

Typically participants spend an extended 3-12 month period (although this period could be shorter) undertaking an inspiring and socially beneficial project with a carefully selected partner organisation in India or Africa. Depending upon the need, companies can ask employees to accept a salary commensurate with local employment standards during the secondment period resulting in a reduction of employment costs.

The secondments enable companies to develop qualities such as adaptability, perspective and cross-cultural understanding while providing first-hand experience of emerging markets through a highly communicable and measurable CSR programme

Participants receive a clear signal that the company values them long term, and is prepared to invest in their future. They develop new skills and qualities that will be of value to them and their employer and receive the opportunity to undertake an inspiring, socially beneficial experience while living at a fraction of usual costs of home.

Meanwhile the organisations in India and Africa get access to skilled people for an extended period of time to help address the challenges they are facing at a time when they need that help more than ever.

Example secondment opportunities:

Implementing a framework to allow the operations of a solar entrepreneur aiming to rid the world of kerosene lamps to generate revenue through the carbon trading mechanism
Developing and embedding within organisational culture a set of operating procedures for a group of eye hospitals providing services for the rural poor
Supporting the legal requirements of fundamental human rights charities based in Anglophone Africa

To find out more please contact us.