Job Rotation Applicability for the Expert Organization

Abstract

Competition for skilled labor is intensifying and companies will have to invest more and more in their work-force development and long-term plans to ensure the retention of workers. Labor mobility is easier, and it is easier for workers to apply for jobs and companies where they can see that their skills and development are being invested in. During this time, it is also important that when an employee invests in his or her own professional development, the employer pays attention to this so that the employee feels that he or she is an important part of the business and culture of the entire company. Both those who are at the beginning of their careers and those who have been working for a long time want to see opportunities to develop themselves and their skills. This is a very important factor in maintaining personal motivation and well-being at work, as well as employee engagement. An employer should not only see employees as an essential resource but should process them into a multi-component business and product, on which business growth is secure and competitive. As an method job rotation has received considerably much attention during the past few decades. There is huge amount of the literature results, but it has scattered, and their implications are rarely interpreted in a practical way. The holistic understanding of job rotation is challenging and often time consuming. Thus, the subject of this Master´s thesis connect closely to a real-life practice and it was to acquire a comprehensive understanding how expert organization employees see the job rotation possibilities in practice and what it could affect in personal level as well as in the whole work organization The theoretical part of the study deals very extensively with the possible effects of the job rotation both at the individual level and work team and work group dynamics. In the examination of the theoretical part have been taken account the business things as well as the employees so that current situation could be develop to the positive direction by implementing the job rotation as a standard part of individuals and the whole organization development. Without a solid, realistic understanding and verification of the positive benefits of the job rotation it does not make sense to start job rotation at all. The approach of the thesis is a case study, because the purpose is to understand limited and selected group to achieve more depth information on the particular aspect and in addition it is difficult to study and understand from outside. The case study data was collected by several data sources as reports, questionnaires and by using different data collection techniques as personal interviews and observations. The research methods for this study are qualitative and quantitative. Thus, the questionnaire had a multiple-choice question which represented quantitative approach part and open questions which required a written answer represent together with theme interviews the qualitative approach. The data collection was possible to arrange like this because the set to be examined was well-known and strictly limited. The results showed that employees see the job rotation as a positive opportunity to develop their own competencies and skills. The job rotation is clearly seen as a motivating factor that increases engagement and improves the way the entire organization works together. The challenges and risks were the increase in the workload of individuals and the more difficult delimitation of responsibilities between different responsible persons. It was hoped that the employer would also be able to value multi-skilled people, because as a whole, a multi-skilled, professional and motivated group of experts is the main resource of the entire business in the face of intensifying competition.