Ротация кадров как метод управления персоналом

Technique used by employers

Job rotation is a technique used by some employers to rotate their employees' assigned jobs throughout their employment. Employers practice this technique for a number of reasons. It was designed to promote flexibility of employees and to keep employees interested into staying with the company/organization which employs them. There is also research that shows how job rotations help relieve the stress of employees who work in a job that requires manual labor.

Toyo Kogyo Company is the Japanese firm that now produces Mazda automobiles. Toyo Kogyo has been practicing job rotation for over 20 years as a direct result of the oil embargo of the 1960s. Toyo looked to job rotation to fill gaps in experience due to the cutbacks needed during a downturn in the economy. This has resulted in company with a very efficient workforce that is more knowledgeable than their more specialized competitors.

Job rotation may also be used to alleviate the physical and mental stresses endured by employees when working at the same position, year after year. By allowing employees to rotate to other positions, the risk factors for some types of musculoskeletal disorders may be reduced. Job Rotation is also believed to have the ability to decrease the amount of boredom and monotony experienced by employees who work the same position for extended periods of time. Job rotation caters to the employee's preferences in a variety of tasks, letting them be more flexible in their positions while endowing workers with a wide range of skills. This also allows the worker job security by developing multiple skills instead of specializing in one aspect. In times of urgency or emergency employees in job rotation are prepared to deal with unusual operations other more specialized workers may not be able to.

There are some negative attributes associated with job rotation. Firstly, some positions within a company may not be eligible for rotation. There may be positions within a company that may be specialized due to technology or may require highly skilled workers. These positions may not fit the profile for rotation opportunities because of the costs involved to train the workers. Another problem faced by companies is that some employ unionized workers that may be resistant to job rotation due to standard union practices.

Employers are able to evaluate employees not only for their output but also for their personality traits and team work skills. "Output measures may easily be translated into attributes such as leadership abilities, technical competence, relations with others and judgement." Job rotation benefits the private sector by allowing workers to become flexible in skills needed throughout the company not just in one section or division, this allows companies to benefit through lower costs of needing to train new employees to do the same job.

Job rotation in the public sector can be used to create communication networks between agencies. This is a benefit for agencies this in times of interagency involvement, or times of emergency. "Interagency assignments can promote networks among personnel from the host and home agencies. Job rotation programs can be designed with a formal component to encourage networking, or networks can be established informally through day to day interactions between the individual and his or her peers at the host agency. ""Depending on the assignment, an individual can build specific skills needed for interagency collaboration, such as how to plan, lead, and execute interagency efforts. Several experts contend that the best way to teach people to lead in a collaborative environment is to provide them with an opportunity to do so."

Drawbacks from Job Rotation in the public sector are often affected the most by lack of cooperation between the agencies involved. Each agency must come into the project fully or the project is likely to fail; making these projects often hard to create or manage. Uneven exchanged in workforce talent can occur when one agency sends skilled personnel to another agency only to receive lower skilled personnel in return. This not only affects the consistency of work coming out of the first agency, but also has the effect of making managers more apprehensible to the aspect of future programs. Employees in these situations oftentimes feel that their careers are put on hold the moment they participate in rotation. Employees feel their contributions at other agencies will not be valued as much by their home agency. Employees feel they will be looked over and miss future opportunities due to lack of recognition and difference in location. "These programs are not easy to design and manage effectively, and can impose significant costs on the individuals and organizations involved. Cultural differences that exist among different agencies, funding streams, and authorities that flow toward a single agency rather than toward enterprise level goals are additional factors that complicate agencies’ abilities to work together to design a win win program."