Job rotation

Job rotation is the lateral transfer of employees between jobs in an organization without a change in their hierarchical rank or salary grade. Rotated employees usually do not remain in these jobs permanently and may also not return to former jobs. The frequency and duration of intervals in a job rotation can vary widely from daily to periods of years. The practice serves several functions including staffing, employee motivation, managing employee fatigue, employee orientation and placement, and career development.

Job rotation is used systematically by a large number of companies. This can be through structured job rotation programmes, or informally though the frequent lateral transfers that occur in organizations. Rotations are more common among lower performing staff who don’t generally achieve sizeable performance gains after a rotation. The rotation of higher performing staff is less prevalent, but has been shown to be beneficial for them with sizeable performance increases within two years of a job rotation. Most companies using job rotation have less strict attendance policies due to increased employee engagement and flexibility, while most organizations that implement job rotation focus on productivity and skill development, which can lead to more adaptive workplace policies. Rotation differs from promotion, which refers to an upward movement or rise in rank in an organizational hierarchy, usually indicated by an increase in responsibility and status and change in compensation.

Job rotation contradicts the principles of specialization and the division of labor, which suggest employees specialize in narrowly defined tasks as a way to increase productivity. It also differs from practices such as traditional craft production, where a craftsperson may perform all the tasks to produce a final product, and job enlargement where the scope of a job may be extended.

Records show job rotation has been used by communal societies, such as the Shakers since the nineteenth century.

There is evidence that job rotation has been practiced by firms in Japan since the early 1950’s. Toyo Kogyo Company the Japanese firm that now produces Mazda automobiles, has been one such company. Toyo has used job rotation to redeploy staff during economic events, but does exclude some expert areas from their system (e.g. research and development).

Potentially due to the widespread usage of job rotation in Japan and the success of Japanese firms, interest in job rotation increased in the United States of America in the 1980's.

The concept of job rotation has also been used to develop active labor market policies. A scheme introduced in Denmark in the early 1990’s supported unemployed people to rotate into the jobs of employed people, to enable them to participate in further training.

Job rotation offers numerous benefits for both organisations and employees: