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Job rotation best practices

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by acurreri

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Enclosed is my response to today's article "Time for a change? Job rotation best practices"
Job rotation is not very realistic. This is another re-cycled idea that doesn't work in the real word. Does anybody remember the centers of excellence concept? The problem is that its specialization that makes an IT person really valuable. Yes you need to be well rounded in other areas, but any smart career minded person is already well rounded and managing his own career. And unless the CIO and TOP all level managers are going to rotate, and lead by example this will just another foolish idea. In the real world what's good for the goose must be good for the gander, or your talented peole will move on. This may work in an extremely controlled environment for some people, and a rare few would benefit, but most people would be made very confortable with the concept and the company because the managers that implement this will not follow it themselves.

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by james r linn

In our support organizations, we work together as teams - help desk, desktop, sys admins, network admins, 2nd and 3rd level support all have to work together.

One thing that improves that work together is rotations. Our desktop team usually rotates with help desk, and they come back after a week with a new perspective, and better attitiude and understanding of what the help desk people go through. For other groups we do longer rotations - it takes a while to understand what goes on in the data centre, or in network management. But the same priciple applies - we work better as a team once we've walked a mile in our peers shoes.

James

by enkedu

The problem with a good idea (and let's assume that job rotation is a "good idea"), is that it is designed to solve a problem or problem set. Not everyone has the same problem or problem set. My experience (22+ years in IT and rather more than 40 in life) tells me that certain types who are excellent IT specialists (check out Asperger's Syndrome) are lousy generalists and hate the thought of doing this. Worse, their self-esteem is contingent on their specialist 'mana' and, talking that away from them, demeans them in a deep, personal way. Others are bothered by being 'pigeon-holed' and want the freedom to be generalists.

Smart management recognises the needs of the business and the needs and capabilities of its employees and produces an appropriate working environment for its current workforce, rather than hit them with a "get with the programme" message. Not-so-smart management wants a 'quick fix' to a 'problem' (usually ill-defined) and finds, after a not terribly exhaustive search, this month's management theory (often last year's, warmed over).

Message? Know your people and their wants, needs and capabilities and match these to your organisation's wants and needs. Find the gaps and brainstorm ways to fill these. Examine the pros and cons of each of these and come up with a workable solution. Generally, this will be a combination of approaches governed by necessity.

by sheilau

I have to agree with James on his reply....we have been using a Job Shadow program for several months now, and it has done wonders for our understanding of other teams in IS. Each month our Help Desk focuses on a different group, and we rotate through and shadow someone in that group. This has resulted in a much better communication flow between groups, and more understanding on how what we do at the Help Desk affects the other teams. We are also seeing an increase in information coming the other way - other teams are taking an interest in how they can help us do our jobs better - and reduce calls to them. It has been a great experience for everyone involved.

by xpertdragon

I believe you are completely right! "Job Rotation" is a an old concept in the working world, and is a struggling attempt for many companies to get a grip on things so to speak.

From what I could remember of old Management, and Management Operations classes from college, Books that were published in the 1970's, and still instituted on clases through the 90's mentioned "Job Rotation" as a very feasible and cost saving option for companies.

1.) We all know that "Job Rotation" is attempt toease the factor of mass layoffs in a population of workers that have similiar, but still different duties. If Fred gets laid off, and you have learned his job skills through Job Rotation, you will be doing his and your duties until management findsa replacement, which they promise will be soon, or less than 2 weeks.

2.) Job roration, an older concept which rarely works out long term, can only usually work in situations where a population or group of workers share similar work duties. An example would be a group of works that work on a manufacturing assembly line...chances are, you already know how to do the job of the person in front of or next to you on the assembly line. It is not a problem to rotate these employees temporarily for learning purposes or permanantly.

Also Job Rotation, I don't believe works well with those in I.T that may have diverse and very different job functions....1.) It is too time consuming to do Job Rotation in I.T. and 2.) It would create an eliminating factor and workload that would not require the opening of new positions, which is not going to happen for the integrity of different skilled I.T. workers.

Old Managemet and work Cncepts need to Die off eventually, and it is time the idea of "Job Rotation" did.

Just my Two Cents!

Paul M. Chavez

by road-dog

I am a high end router guy. If I were put on desktop support, you would be paying me 3 times as much per hour as a PC analyst would make to do the job MUCH more slowly. The jobs are just too dissimilar. Likewise, I don't think anybody thinks its a good idea having the PC guy dorking with a wet T1 (105 VDC), or trying to append an access list on a router.

Management theory is theory, reality is reality. Let's save the "walking a mile in the other guys's shoes" for the encounter group during the annual retreat in Maui!

by ferocious

You can think of IT rotation as high school. If they want to work backward, the only way it can work is if the higher-end techs provide training and instruction ONLY for lower-end employees. Is the fact that management wants you to revert back to helpdesk an indication that they want to eliminate jobs? If a person began their career in helpdesk and stayed in it for a year (or two) wouldn't it be obvious that they would love to advance to higher paying jobs? Even the helpdesk professionals who have that much expertise can learn all the theory they want until it is time to move on to assistant to something else. Rotating back to lower tier positions is more of a refresher course or covering for the employee who called in sick, nothing more.

by james r linn

Funny, while we haven't had the network team work on desktop, we have had the desktop folks work with the networking folks. It doesn't have to be a disaster or a major productivity hit, and its a development opportunity for the desktop tech who may be ready to stretch their wings.

We usually do it with some parameters - there has to be an opportunity to work with an existing team member on something where the person can add value(have a meaningful task) and at the same time learn something. For example, the desktop folks came over when a major wiring closet was being reorganized, something they could definately assist with once someone taught them how to do punch downs. It also helped them to see the network group's role in the moves adds and changes process.

Our staff tell us that they want more of these kinds of opportunities and we will keep looking for them.

James

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