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Task rotation means that employees get a glimpse into each other's kitchens by, for example, changing departments. As a result, you break the island culture and improve cooperation.
This blog will focus on task rotation, job rotation, departmental rotation, or in English: job rotation. But what is that really?
“Task rotation, job rotation or job rotation, means giving your employees the opportunity to switch roles so that new challenges can be experienced. This can be done in many ways. For example, employees can take a look behind the scenes at a completely different department, but it can also involve just changing jobs or tasks.”
This technique has many advantages. Think about:
And so we can go on and on. In this blog, we highlight some of the most important benefits one by one. We'll also give you a few ideas on how to stimulate task rotation in your own organisation.
First of all, task rotation can lead to process improvement. Sometimes it is very helpful to look at a problem from a different perspective. For example, rotate some service desk staff with HR staff. These are often departments that exchange a lot of information with each other via automated processes. Who knows, these processes may be optimised. There is a good chance that job rotation leads to more ideas for improvement!
Moreover, switching positions or departments can be a way of internal knowledge sharing, also known as cross-pollination! In some cases, for example, two departments run into a similar problem that they solve in a different way. By function rotation you can learn from each other! Or maybe they can solve the problem together.
Read more about this knowledge sharing within organisations.
Task rotation can cause an island culture to disappear, and the internal communication between departments will improve.
What is island culture?
“One islet culture is a work culture where it seems as if the employees of different departments literally live on different islands. They have no open communication with each other and are estranged. This can lead to mutual friction or even conflict, which will cause work to suffer.”
I'm sure you recognise it. Employees in the same department feel more connected, logically because they speak to each other more often, have the same responsibilities and run into the same problems. People are naturally focused on wanting to be part of a group. As a result, we often tend to glorify our own group (or department) and drop it off in another group/department. Very human, but not really helpful.
This is because this can lead to the reproaches flying around you and that constructive open communication is hard to find. “We do our jobs, but they fail” is a common statement from an employee who works in an island culture.
Job rotation can offer the solution! Although people are very attached to their own “group”, they are also very flexible and can adapt to a new group and then experience a connection with it. By temporarily being part of a new department, there can be more mutual understanding. For example, about how certain problems arise or how complex it actually is to solve them.
Retaining employees. Hot topic in 2022. And guess what: task rotation can certainly contribute to that too!
“A change in food makes you eat.”
An old statement that applies entirely to task rotation. By changing food from time to time, people maintain appetite. And by changing activities from time to time, people maintain job satisfaction.
By changing tasks, your employees are temporarily removed from their standard range of tasks. Their daily stumbling blocks make way for new, refreshing challenges, with a significant motivation boost as a result!
Also, don't forget that job rotation is the ultimate way to introduce applicants to your organisation. Have them walk with a different department for one day each time during onboarding. This increases the chance that new employees will end up in the right position and stick around!
Read more about increase job satisfaction? Also read: Find your ikigai!
In these times, recruiting new employees for important roles can be a huge challenge. Time to out of the box to think! Sometimes you don't have to look for it outside your organisation, but the one you're looking for is just within reach (literally!). Maybe you're looking for a good marketer. Then consider: Who in your team seems to be suitable for this? Forget any papers and diplomas, but look purely at traits, personality and motivation. Who is open to trying something different? Who likes to learn new things? Who has the tools to become proficient at something?
Also read our blog about: do you opt for diplomas or competences?
Job rotation is the perfect way to find out if your hypotheses could be true and whether certain employees actually have untapped talents. This way, you can let your potential new marketer get a taste of any new position for a certain period of time. Or you let employees switch tasks in a very random way, without expectations. Maybe that will take a very surprising turn!
“Sometimes you can do just fine by rotating a few tasks/functions without having to look for that one needle in the haystack!”
Exchanging makes you cry. Also give your employees a return guarantee. You don't like the new feature, do you? Then they can simply return to their old activities.
Perhaps you want to implement task rotation in your own organisation. So how do you actually realise this? How do you shape this in a thoughtful, productive way?
Set up an online academy with e-learnings about the activities of each department. This is how your employees get a sneakpeak of what task rotation in a particular department might look like. Let them also draw up an ambition list, with tasks/functions that they aspire to. E-learning is also an extremely effective way to train employees before they start working in their 'new' position.
Don't you have one yet? online academy? Then take a look at Pluvo's options. Or take contact join us to have a sparring together.
