Secondment vs. Deputation Explained

Secondment and deputation both describe the same broad idea: an employee stays on their original employer's rolls but works, temporarily, somewhere else. The words are used almost interchangeably in casual HR conversation, but they are not the same thing in practice. Secondment is the umbrella term used across the UK, EU, Australia, and multinational corporates. Deputation is the specific Indian public-sector term, governed by service rules, with a legal concept called *lien* attached to it.

If you are running an HR team that touches both a global business and Indian public-sector or PSU hiring, you will meet both terms in the same week. Getting them confused is not a spelling problem, it is a payroll, tax, and legal-authority problem. This post lays out the difference plainly, and covers when to use which, what the contract actually looks like, and where teams get burned. If, on the back of a secondment or deputation ending, you need to hire a replacement fast, Fabric is an AI interview platform that runs Round 1 screening (resume, eligibility, live interview) so a recruiter is not the bottleneck.

What is a secondment?

A secondment is the temporary assignment of an employee from their existing employer (the "home" or "seconder") to another organisation, department, or geography (the "host"), for a defined period. The employee stays on the home employer's payroll and continues to accrue tenure, benefits, and statutory entitlements there, while working under the day-to-day direction of the host. When the period ends, they return to their original role, or a role of equivalent seniority, at the home employer.

Secondments are common across three settings: inside a corporate group (an employee moves from the UK entity to the Singapore entity for 12 months), between partner organisations (a Big Four accounting firm seconds a manager into a client for a compliance rollout), and across the public-private line (a civil servant is placed into an industry body to help shape policy). The typical duration is 6 to 24 months, though longer arrangements exist.

The contract sits at the centre of the arrangement. SHRM's guidance on expatriate secondments is that there are actually *two* agreements: one between the home employer and the host, and one between the home employer and the employee. Both should be tailored to the host country's employment law, and both should be clear that no direct employment relationship exists between the employee and the host entity. That last point is what protects the host from being deemed the employer for tax, liability, or termination purposes.

What is deputation? (deputation definition)

Deputation is the Indian equivalent, and it is a term of art rather than a general description. In Indian government service, deputation is the temporary transfer of a government employee (called the "deputationist") from their parent department to another government department, a state government, a public sector undertaking (PSU), an autonomous body, or, in some cases, a private organisation working on a government project. It is governed by the Central Civil Services (CCS) rules and by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Office Memoranda for central government staff, and by equivalent state service rules for state staff. The Government of India's rules on transfer on deputation / foreign service lay out the eligibility, tenure caps, pay fixation, and re-employment terms.

Two features distinguish deputation from a generic secondment:

• The employee retains a lien on their parent post. A lien is the legal right to return to the original post at the end of the deputation period. Unless the employee explicitly relinquishes it in writing, that right is preserved through the entire deputation, including any extensions. This is why a deputationist's original position typically cannot be filled substantively during their absence.
• Consent is generally required. Deputation is not a unilateral transfer order. Judicial precedent, including *Kunal Nanda v. Union of India (2000)*, has held that the employee's consent is essential, because the terms and conditions of service under the borrowing organisation may differ materially from the parent.

Deputation typically runs for 3 to 5 years, and it carries a deputation allowance, often 10 to 25 percent of basic pay, to compensate for the change in role and, often, location. Seniority, pension entitlements, and cadre position in the parent organisation continue to accrue.

Secondment vs deputation: what actually differs

Both preserve the underlying employment relationship. Both are temporary. Both involve a "home" and a "host." The differences are jurisdictional, legal, and structural.

The one line that matters most: deputation carries a statutory return right (the lien); a secondment carries a contractual one. Everything else follows from that.

When companies use secondment

Secondment is the go-to structure whenever an organisation needs skills in a place, or with a partner, for a bounded stretch of time, without hiring against headcount there. Three common patterns:

• Cross-border talent placement inside a group. A tech company with entities in six countries seconds a senior engineer from the Berlin entity to the US entity to help ship a launch, then returns them. Payroll stays in Berlin. The US entity signs the host-side agreement.
• Client secondments in professional services. A management consultancy or law firm places a manager or associate inside a client for six to twelve months on a large programme. The firm keeps the employee; the client pays a fee that covers salary plus margin.
• Public-private exchange. A regulator seconds a policy specialist into an industry body, or vice versa, so each side builds up context on how the other actually operates.

The reason to use secondment rather than permanent transfer is usually one of three: the sending organisation wants the person back, the work is genuinely finite, or the host has a hiring freeze but a real skills gap.

When organisations use deputation

Deputation is used almost exclusively in the Indian public sector and adjacent bodies:

• Central to state, or state to central. An IAS officer is deputed from a state cadre into a central ministry, or a central-service officer is sent to a state secretariat.
• Government to PSU or autonomous body. A senior officer is deputed from a ministry into a public sector undertaking, a regulator, or an autonomous institute (for example, into a technical body or a public university) to fill a specialist post.
• Deputation to international or foreign service. Officers deputed to work with international agencies, foreign governments, or Indian missions abroad. The DoPT rules treat this as "foreign service" for administrative purposes.

Private-sector Indian employers occasionally use the word "deputation" to describe an intra-group transfer, especially in older or family-run conglomerates, but that is loose usage rather than the formal legal category.

Contracts, payroll, and who "employs" the person

This is where mixing up the two terms creates real damage.

For a secondment, the home employer stays the legal employer. Payroll, statutory withholding, and termination rights sit with them. The host pays a service fee, not a salary. If the host country requires local payroll registration for a person working there for more than a threshold number of days (this varies by country and is a real tax exposure), a shadow payroll may be set up, but the underlying employment relationship does not move.

For a deputation, the borrowing organisation pays the deputationist directly during the deputation period, and adjusts pension and other continuing entitlements back to the parent. The parent department still owns the underlying service record, the lien on the post, and, ultimately, the person's cadre position.

The confusion to avoid: writing a "deputation" letter for a private-sector intra-group move to India when what you actually mean is a secondment. The letter will not carry the legal effect of a deputation (there is no lien, because there is no parent government post), and it can create ambiguity about who the employer is for the purposes of Provident Fund, gratuity, or termination.

What HR teams get wrong about both

Three recurring mistakes:

1. Treating the return date as soft. Both structures are supposed to end. When the return date drifts, the arrangement quietly turns into a permanent transfer, and the paperwork stops matching reality. Either extend it formally or convert it formally. Do not let it drift.
2. Undercounting the recruiting gap. When someone is on a two-year secondment or a four-year deputation, the home team is short a person for that whole period. If the home team backfills, the returning person may not have a role to come back to. If they do not backfill, the workload sits on colleagues. Plan the backfill honestly at the start.
3. Assuming the two words are interchangeable in contracts. They are not. Use "secondment" for private-sector, cross-entity, or cross-border arrangements; use "deputation" only when the arrangement actually falls under Indian public-service rules. A confused contract is a slow-motion payroll and tax problem.

For any HR or talent team, that third point is the one that shows up on audits. The first two show up in exit interviews and attrition data.

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FAQ

What does it mean to go on secondment?

Going on secondment means being temporarily assigned by your employer to work for another organisation, department, or location for a fixed period, while staying on your original employer's payroll and returning to a role there when the period ends.

What do Americans call secondment?

There is no exact American equivalent; US employers usually describe similar arrangements as a "job rotation," a "detail" (in federal service), or a "temporary assignment." The word "secondment" is used in the US but is much more common in the UK, Australia, and Indian corporate usage.

Is secondment the same as deputation?

No. Secondment is the general, mostly private-sector term used globally, while deputation is a specific Indian public-service arrangement governed by CCS rules and DoPT memoranda, and it carries a formal legal right (the lien) to return to the parent post.

What is a lien in deputation?

A lien is the legal right of a deputationist to return to their original post in the parent department at the end of the deputation, and it is preserved unless the employee explicitly relinquishes it in writing.

How long does a secondment or deputation typically last?

A secondment usually runs from six months to about two years, while a deputation typically lasts three to five years, sometimes longer with formal extensions.

Who pays the salary during a secondment or deputation?

For a secondment, the home employer usually keeps paying salary and charges the host a service fee; for a deputation, the borrowing organisation typically pays the deputationist directly during the deputation period, with the parent adjusting continuing entitlements like pension.