In almost every industry, a job rotation strategy will go a long way toward making employees feel more appreciated and valued. While there may be some hurdles to maintaining the success of this strategy, the benefits of job rotation far outweigh them.
So, what exactly would a program like this entail?
In a nutshell, employees would move through various roles within their current department or other departments in the business. This will allow them to gain exposure to the different parts of the organization and, at the same time, expand their skill set.
Typically, job rotations can offer the employee and employer several advantages, and certain areas of your business will reap greater rewards than others.
Let’s take a closer look at the advantages and potential challenges that could arise from implementing a job rotation strategy within your workplace.
Where Can Your Organization Reap The Greatest Rewards?
When it comes to job rotation benefits, some areas have more potential than others do.
Four of these areas include:
1. Employee Networks
In the same way, that job rotation can help employees to broaden their skillsets. It can also help your employees to expand their networks. With a wider network, employees automatically become more prepared for leadership roles, which can serve both the organization and the employee well in the future.
One of the biggest benefits of job rotation is that employees are exposed to—and have the opportunity to learn—the different working styles and cultures within each area of the business. This encourages collaboration between departments as there’s a greater understanding of their inner workings. It will also help to provide the company with cross-functional capabilities. In this instance, if someone gets sick and cannot work, the business can call upon other employees to fulfil the role. The stand-in employee will be fully capable of completing the work to the necessary standard.
2. Retention and Motivation
Another major advantage of job rotation is that it motivates key employees with high potential. By offering the opportunity to rotate within the company, employees realize that the company is investing in their future, and exploring their potential.
In the long run, this will help to retain talent, as employees will begin to foster new learning opportunities. When talented employees don’t see an opportunity for growth or if they’re kept in the same position for too long, the organization runs the risk of a high turnover rate. High turnover can cost a considerable amount of money as new employees must be hired or trained, so retention is vital for a business of any size.
When a business offers a job rotation program, it creates more challenges that help test the employees’ adaptability to new environments and managers while learning new skills.
3. Improved Organization And Increased Capacities
When implemented successfully, job rotation allows employees to broaden their skills. They become exposed to different functional areas within the company, and their horizons stretch beyond their existing roles.
For example, if an employee in a sales position rotates to a role involving more research and development, they will learn more about how products are produced and the gaps they’re filling within the market. This gives them a better understanding of the business as a whole and could improve their selling skills too. They’ll take their new knowledge back to sales and use it to their advantage.
Overall, when employees rotate, they get a fuller picture of how an organization works, the products or services it sells, and the process behind its development. This automatically benefits everyone involved.
4. Uncovering Hidden Talents
Job rotations are designed to help expose employees to a wider range of operations within a business. This will go a long way in assisting managers in uncovering their staff’s hidden talents.
Throughout the process, employees are given various assignments that will help them to gain awareness of the overall working style of the business, as well as help them to better understand the various problems that could pop up at any stage of production or operation.
As the rotation process moves, managers can identify precisely what certain employees are good at so that they can be placed in the role best suited to their talents.
Potential Hurdles And How To Overcome Them
It’s absolutely vital that when implementing a job rotation strategy, HR managers are precise in their execution. This allows them to maximize the benefits of the program best and, in turn, minimize the potential problems. Job rotations must be aligned with the organization’s overall HR strategy so that high-potential employees can be adequately prepared for any potential leadership roles.
Let’s take a closer look at the most common challenges HR managers face when implementing a rotation program, as well as possible solutions to these challenges.
1. A Decrease In Productivity
You can expect that when a job rotation strategy is implemented, productivity levels decrease temporarily. This is because the business is essentially rotating someone out of their regular position, where they are likely very productive, into a new position.
When this happens, it’s quite normal for there to be a steep learning curve ahead, so the employee will probably need a bit more support when rotating. In addition to this, the team welcoming the rotating employee is likely to be less productive because they may have to provide more coverage than they usually would.
A possible solution to this issue is to develop policies and standards ahead of time to help managers and employees navigate the program. With this, a new structure of support, which could include orientation, a mentorship program, and training for the rotated employee and their managers, could be implemented.
2. Need To Establish Value
While there may be plenty of benefits of job rotation, one of the biggest hurdles could lie with upper management. Typically, those in leadership positions in any organization won’t immediately recognize the value of job rotation. This is likely because, for them, the idea of job rotation could create chaos within the workplace.
Overcoming this may not be easy at first. But once the leadership team’s commitment is gained, the HR team could then use it as a tool. You can use this tool to broaden skills and motivate and retain employees. This is particularly true of younger employees who typically thrive in environments that help them expand on their skill sets. Furthermore, the business could then develop cross-functional capabilities between departments.
3. The Decline Of Specialized Skills
When it comes to role rotation programs, it’s not uncommon for a generalist mindset to take over within an organization. This means that employees will start to know a bit more about multiple different areas. However, this might not always be the company’s primary aim, as management may see it fit to have employees who are very knowledgeable in one area (for example, a more specialized workforce).
As a solution, HR may attempt to define departments and functional areas that might be more suited to a rotation program. It’s important to remember that while job rotations might not be best for developing the more technical skills that a business needs, it could be the perfect answer when it comes to developing general skills and leaders.
Setting up a leadership track alongside a specialist track will make it easier for all concerned to observe the best of both worlds. For more specialist skills, organizations should not be afraid to outsource if necessary.
4. Not Being Able To Establish A Metric For Success
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of job rotations and the strategies implemented with them is that it can be tricky to measure the success of the program. The results might not be easily measurable in the same way that sales strategies are, for example. However, this does not make it an impossible task.
To solve this, an organization should consider defining specific criteria that could help managers and employees evaluate their results. These criteria could include things like:
- What new skills has the employee learned?
- How has the employee implemented practices from their previous positions?
- How has the manager and the overall team of the rotated employee learned, and vice versa?
Once these questions are answered, it’s best to continue asking them regularly, not just to the employee concerned but also to their manager and colleagues.
The Takeaway
Although implementing a job rotation is a complex process, these programs offer a range of benefits. Like everything, there are challenges, but the benefits of job rotation can far outweigh these when executed in a strategic, controlled manner.
