You are great at your work, but wouldn’t you be superior if only the departments around you would perform better? Would it not be fantastic if the boss feels how it is to do your job? If only for one day?

There is a centuries old solution for that: job rotation. You can try the work of somebody else, and somebody else can experience your job.

Is this still valuable in a modern workplace? You bet it is! Here are just a few benefits:

• The #1 benefit is seeing the same company through a different lens. A different perspective leads to more mutual respect and understanding. People assume they understand somebody else’s job, but seeing it more closely, and even doing it yourself, can provide a better understanding. It can impact team collaboration and thus impact the company as a whole.
• This different perspective can result in serendipity, which can lead to unexpected innovation and process efficiency.
• Establishing connections via job rotation is enhancing networks and breaking down departmental silos.

All this will lead to better products and better services.

But what about the benefits for employees? 

• Employees can improve their skills set. Broaden it!
• Employees can sniff potential new jobs and get a better view of career possibilities.
• The can step outside their comfort zone and learn.

All this leads to reduced turnover and improved mobility.

Start with short job rotation

There are two types of job rotation: short-term rotation and long-term rotation. The latter requires deeper learning, real job change, guidelines, contract changes, concurrent employments and more. While short-term job rotation can provide all the benefits above. It’s easier to start with, and it’s the first step to longer job rotation program anyway. So let’s focus on a short-term job-rotation program and some tips, tricks and suggestions for a successful program.

Crowdsource short job rotation

Depending on the target groups you can start planning job rotation on behalf of your employees, but why not let the employees do the planning themselves? And thus make the job rotation program completely social. In other words: crowdsource it! If people can share homes via AirBnB, why wouldn’t they be able to share their job for a short period of time?

1. Formulate the goal (and thus the target groups) and duration of the program.
2. Create the coolest campaign! Posters, social media, graphic design highlighting the benefits.
3. Bring a transparent online job rotation crowdsourcing program to life.
4. Keep it simple for employees to propose, select, change and share jobs.
5. HR should act as mediator, for example by creating supporting training plans for employees.
6. Share success. Let employees see how their colleagues feel about job rotation.

Rotation Inspiration

Job Rotation is not new, but modern technique gives additional possibilities. Some cool job rotation inspiration:

• Rotate employees to the reception desk, if only for one day. Let them feel the vibe at the most important door of the company: the entrance.
• Or go even further and connect employees with facilitating roles like cleaning and the restaurant to better understand and respect what their contribution is to the company’s success, like the British Airways Boss who cleans plane toilets.
• Put every non client facing role in a client facing position for a couple of days. Let product managers join sales to actually visit clients.
• And the other way around, let sales people see what they are actually selling. Bring office personnel to production sites, etc.
• Let managers rotate departments to improve general management skills and get deeper understanding of dynamics in different departments.
• Nothing is too crazy. Even a President of a country can be a farmer at the same time.

How to measure success of the job rotation?

In my opinion you don’t have to measure job rotation, because it will lead to employee engagement. And engagement is like being in love. You know it, but you can’t measure it.

But… if you can’t live without measurement, then start thinking about a Social Succession Index (SSI):

• ConclusionInstant Performance Feedback should become more positive and more frequent.
• Reduced Recruitment & Onboarding cost, because succession fill rates will go up, because internal mobility will go up, because employees will come into contact with more career options.
• Reduced Learning cost, because job rotation can increase the amount of learning from colleagues who otherwise would have paid an external trainer. An example: Would you gain more if you send managers to an expensive management training or will a management rotation do the trick?
• Improved engagement and cooperation between teams will lead to higher Net Promoter Score, which can lead to more revenue.

If Google can allow their employees to spend 20% of their time on creative projects. Why wouldn’t you allow your employees to spend 20% of their time in another department? The investment in money is low. The investment in positive energy and positive change is high. If done right, job rotation tears down walls and makes succession management social.