A job rotation could be what you need

Millennials usually want more opportunities to learn, grow, and advance their careers but there are also those employees that will hold onto their jobs and will not want to let go. How do you strike a balance? What factors should you consider before rotating your workers? If you are a good employer, your employees will not have to change to another company in order to attain the career growth that they have always longed for.

It is therefore important to have a clear rotational policy which does not only benefit you the employer but the employees as well.

The strategy where employees rotate between jobs within the same business is job rotation. Julia Kushemererwa, a human resource consultant at Success Africa, says the rotation should be among people of similar qualification doing related tasks for example tellers and customer service people in the bank.

Factors to consider
It is important that you design a rotation programme and know which employee will be rotated to what position.

Kushemererwa says: “It should be made clear to the employees that it is not a promotion but they will always go back to their position. Also, be very careful about the planning process so that it does not look like it is demoting the employee. This will solve any cases of ambiguity in the process.”

When you intend to rotate an employee into a certain position, you must know what their individual development plan is and let the rotation be a way of improving their capability. Speak to the employee to know what they want and how you can help them achieve it.

Patrick Ngolobe, a human resource consultant with Africa Executive Leadership Solutions, remarks that as an employer, have a clear understanding of the skills that will be enhanced by placing a particular employee in the job-rotation process.

If there are any skills that are likely not to be developed, let the employee undergo coaching or specific training for those skills.

“It takes some time for employees to settle into a new position that has been allotted to them, he says. While you consider a rotation, think about the time an employee will take to settle, form a team that he will work with. Good rotational time should be about six months to a year but it also takes a good organisation structure, rotational policy and an employee who is not afraid of trying something new.”

If the rotation involves moving to a certain part of the country, there should be a discussion between the line manager and the employee about convenience.

Also, ensure that the person who was in the previous position does not leave a backlog of unfinished work or it will be a set back of the incoming team.

Ngolobe says: “As an employer, put the employee at the heart of the decision. Think about their family if they have one, how for instance, they will manage the house they have been renting. Consider giving special attention to the job rotation plans for female and minority employees.”

Well established organisations that are thinking about rotating their staff should consider the tools the person will need for the new position and if they know how to use them. Also any other extra costs that would be involved.

Advantages
With a rotation system at the work place, employees learn new skills and exposure by taking on new responsibilities. Rotations promote flexibility, employee engagement especially if your employees seem comfortable and laidback at the current positions according to Clare Biira a human resource manager.

She says: “Some people get a sense of belonging and become very comfortable in their positions and sometimes do not deliver what they are supposed to. Rotating them will break this and help increase productivity.”

Biira also thinks that many employees want to grow and advance in their careers.

“Rotating them through different positions and tasks at the work place will enable them learn skills that enhance development in career. This will in turn give them satisfaction, reduce the boredom of doing the same task all the time and increase the chance of retaining the employee.”

With the rotation, you may have a number of employees that can replace another and do not have to go through the hustle of hiring someone that might not do the job very well because might are desperate.

In order for you to test the agility of employees, you need to keep rotating them. This will help you identify the staff that are more open to learning and can easily go on any errand.

Ngolobe says: “Rotating employees in different positions will help the employees to find out where the strengths and weaknesses are so that they can improve. This will also help you as an employer to know who performs what task best and put them in the positions where they perform best for the productivity of your organisation.”

Your employees need a break from strenuous duties and this can only be done through job rotation. Workers that usually do manual labour can get a break to manage fatigue.

John Muliika, an employee in a book manufacturing company, says: “I had always worked in the packaging section but with time, I was moved to the delivery section and this relieved the fatigue a great deal. I think I will be going to another department after four months. The company rotates after four months.”

Disadvantages
As an employer, you need to do an assessment to know how the rotation will be helping your business as well as the employees. Usually, when you rotate employees, there is need for learning new skills. Try teach them to assess the amount that you will be investing in the whole process.

In some organisations, job rotation is not realistic because some positions require particular skills and are highly specialised so the employees need a lot of training before they can start doing the job. Employers in such organisations may incur a lot of costs and are at risk of mistakes done by an inexperienced employee.

“Some rotation processes may bring about mistakes, slow operations, confused employees, and angry customers because the people that were put in particular positions are not suitable and may not deliver as expected since they are still learning the required skills to perform that particular task,” Ngolobe warns.