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This site provides
a. Extensive insight into the research on job rotation and benefits for organisations
b. Many views about the usefulness of job rotation
c. Evidence about what works and what does not work for decision makers
d. An opportunity to share your own experience and work on job rotation
e. An opportunity to start discussions
f. An opportunity to seek and provide advice
Definition of job rotation:
‘Job rotation is the purposeful and organised movement and education of staff within and across organisations to enhance both the success of the organisation and the employability of staff.’
- Coyne 2011
From an exhaustive critical review of the literature on job rotation and many of the synonyms it is clear that there is much confusion and some notable contributions to the knowledge base. The above definition emerged from my review and holds a number of key factors that seem common to most schemes:
• Success for organisations
• Purposeful organisation
• Staff movement
• Staff education
• Increased staff employability.
History of my interest in job rotation – useful HR tool:
Coming from both the personal experience of the usefulness of job rotation and the frustration of leading the establishment of a number of schemes without evidence based models, across two large organisations, I believed that a concerted approach to reflection and research was needed. I hoped that this would increase our effectiveness and success by learning from our mistakes and achievements as the scheme progressed. I also hoped to be able to share the action research process and the findings with others to give them a better ‘head start’ than we had had.
From this view point colleagues and I were successful in obtaining repeated funding:
- for 6 job rotation schemes in ‘hard to staff’ services.
- a ‘spin-off’ project for senior managers who were stakeholders emerged
- to evaluate the schemes from a variety of different perspectives - organisations, customers, rotates and colleagues.
The schemes were funded at different times as were the research studies and as such contributed to an emancipatory action research study and an evolving body of local knowledge about job rotation schemes, their usefulness, what to do and what not to do to make them effective, and the many desired and emergent outcomes that could results from them.
Lessons learnt from the on-going research studies:
A number of lessons were learnt about the key structures, processes and outcomes related to successful job rotation - leadership and project management, about selection, support, educational components, placement management, the status of all stakeholders, communication and buy-in. These have been brought together to form models of key structures, processes and outcomes, and overall models of job rotation.
The objectives of the website:
This website has formed a source of emergent and developing knowledge on job rotation and its application for some ten years or more.
The page provides readers with:
1. key insights into to job rotation as a tool for organisational change and development
2. a host of key success factors for outcomes, structures and processes to establish useful job rotation schemes for the benefit of organisations and their service users/customers
3. really useful research and evaluation processes
4. a site where readers can have their studies hosted for the benefits of others
5. opportunities for discussion via email
6. a source of information and advice.
(email:
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Contribution to researchers - including academic doctoral and post –doctoral studies:
On a personal note much of the contents are ‘products’ from my own learning as part of a Doctorate of Profession. My own mistakes, misunderstanding and learnings are clear for readers to learn from. The studies illustrate learning through practice based research. Hopefully the papers will provide senior managers and professionals who are undertaking such courses or setting up such partnership academic programmes with insight to the sort of useful knowledge generation that can emerge.
Enormous thanks goes to all of those who have very actively helped with these projects.