Replying to LO24177 --
Han Beukers said "I looking into the possibilties for job rotation in our
company (the Netherlands). What I need to find is some recent info how to
set it up in the best way. Are there any down / negative sides to it ?"
I have recently become aware of a serious downside in a manufacturing
company. In this particular company Job Rotation was implemented with the
agreement and co-operation of teams of employees but without careful
consideration of safety issues. In particular the issue of getting the
right fit between the task and the person. This has resulted in a
situation where many of the jobs require strong and robust operators to
perform physically demanding tasks. In the past operators of this
equipment were selected taking into account their physical capacity to
perform the task. Under Job Rotation it appears that many of the operators
have had great difficulty performing some of the tasks but have only
recently started to speak out about their concerns. For some reason this
issue was either overlooked or ignored at the time Job Rotation was first
introduced.
My recommendation would be to carry out a careful Task Analysis exercise
before implementing Job Rotation to ensure each job can be performed
safely by all people likely to be rotated through it.
Also each person needs to be carefully assessed and trained in doing each
job and when changes are introduced to any job that is being rotated, then
all people performing that job will need to be reassessed to ensure they
are familiar with any new procedures or processes. This adds an extra
training dimension that seems often to be overlooked.
A final recommendation would be to keep the number of number of jobs and
number of people at a level that can be handled taking into account the
complexity of the job.
Peter H. Jones
Peopletronics Limited
Career Transition and Change Management Specialists.
Tel. 64 4 569 8875, Fax: 64 4 569 8881
Web Page: http://www.peopletronics.co.nz/
--"Peter H. Jones" <peter@peopletronics.co.nz>
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