Role rotate regularly to improve documentation and resilience
Summary
- Role rotation on a regular basis to improve the resilience of an organization
Details
- Benefits:
- new person in a role may improve the work with new ideas
- New person learns how to do it and can step in to help if normal person is not available
- Provides some intellectual stimulation and job experience to employees
- Allows testing of documented procedures
References
Quotes
I was a trader for eight years, and every year I did this exercise there would be an improvement to my trading book. My colleagues would come in with a completely different perspective and find areas that could be improved or made more efficient. Fresh eyes spark innovation! It’s hard to see the label when you’re inside the jar
Later, as I was building my own company, I realized that role rotation could be implemented at nearly any company with similar benefits. Rotating roles on a regular basis forces your team to document their everyday processes so that anyone on your team can jump in and handle someone else’s day-to-day responsibilities with little to no experience. At Leverage, we’ve had people spend a week in roles that are completely unrelated to what they would normally do, but they’re able to get through it thanks to rigorous documentation. They may not be able to handle every single facet of the role, but they can cover the core responsibilities. When this happens, we see the same benefits that I saw at my trading desk. Sitting in one role for years at a time doesn’t exactly get the creative juices flowing. Most people who stay in one role for a long time just assume there is one way of doing things—the way it’s always been done. An operations team member may find multiple ways to improve an HR workflow. A marketing team member might see opportunities to improve the way a customer-service email is branded. And an accountant might be able to make some adjustments to a process in another department that will help them in their role come tax season
Role rotation has a cultural benefit too. According to Gallup research, 32 percent of people quit their jobs because of career advancement or promotional opportunities8—in other words, they weren’t given a chance to learn, grow, and advance, so they looked elsewhere. This was the number one factor that caused people to quit their jobs, and it’s no surprise. Anyone looking to further their professional career wants to learn as much as they can. Swapping roles is a great way to quickly learn new skills and see how different parts of the business work. Role rotation has saved us countless hours at Leverage, by reducing the impact of turnover and saving us time when fresh eyes find opportunities to improve processes. When my business partner left, a lot of our team left with him. Role rotation and process documentation saved us, as people who had previously rotated into roles were able to take over many of our critical business functions practically overnight.