A secondment is a stretch of time when you leave your usual job, but you have not quit. Your employer sends you to work somewhere else — another team, another company, a government office, a charity — or sometimes to study, and you are expected to come back. Your old desk is still, in a way, yours; your pay and your contract often stay with the home organisation. British and Commonwealth workplaces use the word a lot; American offices more often say a temporary assignment or a loan. It can last months or a couple of years. People take a secondment to learn a new skill, to help a partner organisation, or because their own office needs them elsewhere for a while. It is a formal HR word, not a holiday and not a promotion by itself — though it can help your career. The related verb is to second someone (stress on the second syllable: se-COND), which means to send them on that posting.

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