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Why it is necessary to make an employee move from one job to another within the same organization?

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Question added by Mohammed Ashraf , Director of International Business , Saqr Al-Khayala Group
Date Posted: 2016/02/28
Maha Abdul-Halim PHR
by Maha Abdul-Halim PHR , HR Manager , Hassan's Optician Company

It's Called Rotation , when you move the employees between different departments or Jobs this will give them more understanding of the company's business , will help in the absence of certain staff in some cases like resignations or vacations and will enrich the employee knowledge and social networks inside the company.

Sidrah Nadeem
by Sidrah Nadeem , Global Marketing Manager , Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Rotation is and excellent way of finding out where an employee can add the most value. It also helps him/her know about other departments and generally results in a more mature, cohesive understanding of the organisation as a whole.

This is called Job Rotation.

Job rotation is considered as an effective tool for successful implementation of HR strategy. It is about settling employees at the right place where they can deliver the maximum results. In today’s highly competitive world, this can be proved as the best strategy to find the immediate replacement of a high-worth employee from within the organization. Finding the most suitable people and shifting them to take on the responsibilities of a higher level is a tough task. Job rotation helps HR managers determine who can be replaced by whom and create a suitable and beneficial fit.

A properly planned and carried job rotation process plays an essential role in strengthening the position of an organization and helps it deal with uncertain and tentative outer environment.

Benefits of Job Rotation

  • Helps Managers Explore the Hidden Talent: Job Rotation is designed to expose employees to a wider range of operations in order to assist managers in exploring their hidden talent. In the process, they are moved through a variety of assignments so that they can gain awareness about the actual working style of the organization and understand the problems that crop up at every stage. Through this process, managers identify what a particular employee is good at and accordingly he or she is assigned a specific task.
  • Helps Individuals Explore Their Interests: Sometimes, employees are not aware of what would like to do until they have their hands on some specific job. If their job is rotated or they are exposed to different operations, they can identify what they are good at and what they enjoy doing. They get a chance to explore their interests and hidden potential.
  • Identifies Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes: Job Rotation helps managers as well as individuals identify their KSA (Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes). It can be used in determining who needs to improve or upgrade his or skills in order to perform better. This helps in analyzing training and development needs of employees so that they can produce more output.
  • Motivates Employees to Deal with New Challenges: When employees are exposed to different jobs or assigned new tasks, they try to give their best while effectively dealing with the challenges coming their way. It encourages them to perform better at every stage and prove that they are no less than others. This gives rise to a healthy competition within the organization where everyone wants to perform better than others.
  • Increases Satisfaction and Decreases Attrition Rate: Exposing employees to different tasks and functions increase their satisfaction level. Job variation reduces the boredom of doing same task everyday. Moreover, it decreases attrition rate of the organization. Employees develop a sense of belongingness towards the organization and stick to it till long.
  • Helps Align Competencies with Requirements: Alignment of competencies with requirements means directing the resources when and where they are required. It assesses the employees and places them at a place where their skills, competencies and caliber are used to the highest possible extent.

 

Job rotation is an alternative to reduce the boredom caused due to repetitiveness of tasks and revive their willingness to handle a job and challenges involved in it with same excitement and zeal.

Vinod Jetley
by Vinod Jetley , Assistant General Manager , State Bank of India

The days of employees spending decades at a company -- and receiving a gold watch in gratitude -- are long gone. Workers today are constantly on the move, a fact of life that will only accelerate as job growth picks up. But the turnover poses particular challenges for companies looking to hold onto their best and brightest.

In response, innovative companies are embracing a promising new retention strategy: employee rotation. Instead of locking workers into a single job category with a specific career trajectory, companies are moving workers through a variety of positions within departments or teams. Job rotation is seen as a way to motivate key employees, broaden their skill sets and, most important, hold onto them. It also gives employers the comfort of knowing there's someone who can quickly fill an ailing or departing coworker's shoes.

"I can't think of a single industry that wouldn't benefit from job rotation," says Susan Heathfield, a human resources consultant who's been in the business for 30 years. "It helps employees spread their wings and extend their boundaries" and, she says, it helps employers engage and motivate their staff.

The Payoff for You and Your Staff

So where to start? First, recognize that employee rotation programs should be implemented with careful consideration. Every company should establish clear guidelines with each internal team so employees know what the rotation will entail and managers have a set of of best practices. Otherwise, the rotation will fall apart as employees wander from job to job without clear guidance or oversight. Have a purpose, have a plan and have a way to measure if the rotation is successful, Heathfield said. The programs can often be costly in terms of time spent training workers for their new jobs, she says, but the benefits can far outweigh the expense.

Take, for instance, human resources. In a large company, an employee who typically handles employee health insurance can be shifted into a position that tends to job referrals. "So many employees come to human resources for a multitude of reasons and it makes more sense if their questions can all be answered by their first point of contact," explained Heathfield. "I want everyone in HR cross-trained so that you can serve employees immediately." 

The same logic applies to sales teams. Since sales hinge on relationships, it's crucial for everyone on the team to be familiar with one another's clients. "Normally people have dedicated customers, but having someone else available if the (primary point of contact) is out to serve your customers is key," Heathfield said. Sales folks are always reticent to share their clients, but will if given the right incentives.

A Motivated Worker Is a Happy Worker

It happens -- a lot. You have a valued employee whose skills have grown beyond her current duties and, yet, a promotion isn't an option. In any organization -- flat or hierarchical -- the opportunities to move up the ladder get smaller the higher up you go, notes Heathfield. Then, too, the employee may not want a promotion to the next rung. She'd rather stay an individual contributor than move into management. 

For these folks, job rotation can be a key retention strategy to keep them within your company. Whether an employee wants to be promoted or not, job rotation improves their skills and gives them a broader understanding of the inner workings of a company.  

Sometimes, a valued employee's career path isn't the right one for her. But that doesn't mean she needs to pack up and leave. Quite the opposite. Too often we follow the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and are happy to have employees do what they've shown they can do best. But a lot of workers might be happier facing different challenges and learning new skills. The Society of Human Resources Management reports that self-growth and career development are among the top five most important considerations for workers.

If employees don't feel like they're growing, they'll head for the exits, warns Heathfield. So if you've got a great employee who has expressed interest in trying out new roles within your company, work with them to create a job rotation plan or test phase -- it could be the difference between losing a stellar employee and helping them find a new passion that, in the end, bolsters your bottom line. 

Mikhail Vaskiyev
by Mikhail Vaskiyev , Director , Panasonic Marketing CIS Rep Office

There are different reasons in different companies. In my previous company there was the standard practice when any new comer (usually fresh graduate) should spend 1- 2 years moving from department to department, from factory domain to sales company, from SC to Marketing etc. There is strong conviction that such multitasking in the beginning of the career might be useful for further strong and weak sides identifying, clear assessment and gaining more wide and complex understanding of the whole operation and value of each department. 

Omar Saad Ibrahem Alhamadani
by Omar Saad Ibrahem Alhamadani , Snr. HR & Finance Officer , Sarri Zawetta Company

Appreciate your invitation ,

This is rotation function align with HR Dept. strategies or CEO view

Any way benefits behind it are :

  • Find a suitable position for the experienced employee.
  • Adding value for position\\ department.
  • Kill routines.
  • Diversity the experiences inside sectors.
  • Sometimes consider as an internal training.
  • Adding new views and ideas to sectors.

Ahmed Mohamed Ayesh Sarkhi
by Ahmed Mohamed Ayesh Sarkhi , Shared Services Supervisor , Saudi Musheera Co. Ltd.

to use his all full power to make him more loyalty and not boring on co. and interested about us

 

Hisham Hashim
by Hisham Hashim , Business Development Manager , RAS SERVICES P.L.C

Job rotation is a common practice in today's business world. It serves as HR strategy as well equipping an employee with the necessary knowledge and identifying key specialities to be matched. In HR terms it is useful to identify talents which are hidden and as solution for replacement of employees. When it comes to the employee it helps reduce boredom of routine tasks and initiates creativity to deal with new challenges.

shadi hussien suliman alajrab
by shadi hussien suliman alajrab , General Manager , Manuela training and management development

job rotation involves occasionally moving employees from one job to another to give them variety and increase the experiance . job rotation gives employees a feeling of responsibility  

While i agree with most of the answers above i would like to concur and say it is indeed Job Rotation but the question did not limit us to the possibilities.

In that case i would like to think of it as

  • On the job training: - this can be done to train and up-skill employees to be able to move to a new position.
  • Promotion: - If an employee is promoted then therefore that means more responsibilities or a change of job description that is motivating in nature and that also means that they have exceptionally excelled in their last one.
  • Demotion: - This can also result in a move downwards and the reasons can be endless ranging from poor performance to negative reinforcement of bad behavior within the workplace.
  • Internal transfer: - where one may feel or management may feel that they are more qualified to perform a different job in a different department within the same company.

This is only because the move has not been described but the one that makes more sense would be Job Rotation and the benefits have already been alluded to in some of the answers above.

Most of the HR perspective is covered here by other experts.

 

There is a business continuity aspect involved too. When an employee works in different roles, you build a team of contingent workers. This is useful for business owners from a business continuity perspective.

 

In the same lines, it is possible to even move managers to different roles as a long term mutual benefit between the employee and employer based on different factors.

 

Within IT, it is possible to move even managers between different lateral movements like IT manager, Application Manager, Project Manager, Infrastructure Manager, General Administration in IT, IT Network Manager, Application Development Manager and much more.

 

Sometimes, it is possible to exchange roles within the executive team also if there is a business need.

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