Job Rotation Makes You a More Valuable Employee

Job rotation can be fun. More importantly, you get exposure in other operational areas and form a much clearer picture of your company as a living, breathing entity. Understanding what job rotation can do for your career is equally exciting.

How Management Benefits from Job Rotation

Forward-thinking management benefits from job rotation just as you do. Unfortunately—and surprisingly—formal job rotation programs are still rare in most industries. By encouraging the best employees to spend six to 18 months in an area outside their specialty delivers management and company-wide benefits for all participants.

First, like a great athletic team, the company builds “depth” at various positions. While injuries may be rare, illness, turnover, and family moves can leave an employer with a huge gap in talent in one or more areas. Job rotation can eliminate the crises that might otherwise arise.

Second, management creates a fresh and useful list of qualified promotional candidates who have already proven they can master two or more disciplines. Instead of needing to sift through piles of resumes, telephone and in-person interviews, background checks, and compensation negotiation, they can identify current employees that have already exhibited extra special ability. The risk of new hires declines dramatically.

How You Benefit from Job Rotation

While it’s impressive if you’re one of the best employees in your department, you’ll become much morevaluable when you prove that you can succeed in more than one department. Understand that you’ll need to approach this opportunity with confidence and optimism, because you’ll typically be challenged to excel in an unfamiliar department.

However, you’ll receive wonderful benefits, both personal and professional. You will expand your knowledge, experience, and expertise. If your employer is large, with many employees, you’ll get to meet new people, some of which may become professional or personal friends. In all but very rare cases, employees increase their value to themselves and their employer.

Unlike situations where individuals improve their expertise and value, but management remains unaware of their hard work and achievement, job rotation delivers a public statement of your versatility and ability to everyone. Job rotation also helps you see a more “global picture” of your company, industry, and business in general.

You will find yourself thinking more like management, whether you want to or not. Many people, who spend more than just a few weeks in job rotation, never suffer from “job tunnel vision” again. Learning how other departments play equally critical roles in employer success leads people to understand what senior management faces daily: Motivating and integrating various departments into a goal-oriented funnel that produces success.

Encourage Job Rotation Where None Exists

If your company has no formal job rotation program, you might face some hurdles if you want to participate. Don’t be discouraged. Make a plan and go for it.

Unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” roadmap to help management see the value of job rotation. Industry and corporate culture differences require your creativity and innovation to get a program started. If you believe that you’re facing major road blocks, think “small” at first.

For example, if you work in the IT department as a software designer, you might convince your supervisor that the department will be stronger if you spend some time in the hardware or network architecture area. Argue that working with these teams will improve your design performance. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

If your plan works, you’ve created a new, strong ally: Your supervisor. Even though, at this point, your increased value may be confined to the IT department, you still win. In the worst case, you’ve become more valuable to your department and other employers with this significant addition to your professional resume.

In many cases, your manager will spread the word to peers and senior management that job rotation should be considered on a company-wide basis. The benefits are many; the risks few or non-existent. The only true risk, which usually proves to be minor, is the short-term weakening of the team from your former job and your own temporary shortcomings in the new position.

However, this condition always exists in business via turnover, promotion, or expansion. New people doing new jobs face some form of learning curve. However, unlike hiring someone that you don’t know from the outside, job rotation participants are already proven high achievers for the company. The “new person” risk is minimal in job rotation situations.

You’ll increase your value to your company and yourself. This makes you a more attractive internal promotion candidate and a highly marketable professional to new employers. This increased value translates to more opportunities and higher compensation.