The Benefits of Job Rotation in IT

By Courtney Macavinta

There's no better way to learn something than to get hands-on experience. That's why some IT organizations, in their quest to become business strategy centers versus cost centers, are using a new tool to develop well-rounded staff members who understand the business as well as the technology. This new tool is job rotation.

Job rotation programs can give IT staff the opportunity to take on new roles within IT. These programs allow IT employees to try their hand working for another side of the organization. In some cases, IT employees are given the opportunity to work alongside staff members from the business side of an enterprise who rotate into the IT department for a period of time.

"Rotation has been seen to have a lot of benefit in raising the versatility of the IT organization, lengthening the attention span of current workers, and socializing IT in other areas of the business," says Samuel Bright, Forrester Research analyst, IT Staffing and Careers, author of the February 2007 report, IT Job Rotation -- Still A Long Way To Go.

At the same time, Bright says, "Formalized rotation is fairly rare." Although CIOs acknowledge the benefits of job rotation programs, only 11% of a group of CIOs surveyed by Forrester rotated their IT staff into other roles in IT. And only 12% of respondents said they rotated IT staff into other business roles for short periods of time through formal rotation programs.

Bright and other analysts agree that the benefits of job rotation are strong enough for CIOs to pursue instituting formal job rotation programs. Here's how CIOs can get started:

• Start rotating within IT   Especially when it comes to new hires, rotating employees to different IT roles can help CIOs ensure that "tribal knowledge" is getting passed on to new team members, Bright says. "Rotating internal IT staff creates versatility. It allows CIOs to have a well-rounded IT staff and bolsters communication on the whole," he adds.
• Offer longer-term IT job swaps  A 2006 report by Gartner Inc., Toolkit: Infrastructure and Operations Develop Human Resources Best Practices, recommends that IT organizations can "arrange a 'permanent' swap between two areas, for example, a server administrator moving to the network team and vice versa" for up to three years. The report also recommends that organizations institute a "tour of duty" assignment in another area for three to six months. Both research firms recommend that managers also rotate jobs to foster more collaboration and better communication between groups within IT.
• Rotate IT through the business  CIOs have done turns as CFOs or COOs -- and vice versa -- on the career development path. IT-to-business rotation programs can be beneficial to those who aren't C-level executives, as well. IT staff, in particular those who are moving up the leadership ranks within IT, can get hands-on experience within other business areas in order to improve IT's business results and effectiveness.
• Let business staff join the IT team  Only 7% of enterprises surveyed by Forrester had a formal business-to-IT rotation program. One of the biggest setbacks is that IT's professional development process must already be equipped to effectively train employees from other lines of business in order to invite them to rotate into IT. IT must already be considered a key link in overall business strategy. One tactic CIOs can take is to get IT included in an organization's new MBA rotation program, which some enterprises already have in place. The effort could be worth the reward if a CIO can get IT as part of the business-side staff rotation. "You'll have default ambassadors for IT within the rest of the business," Bright says.

But CIOs will have to take on the initiative of setting up such a program, Bright says. "The benefits are really around moving your IT people closer to the end customer so they understand the impact of their technology. At the same time, you're able to market the IT organization itself and it's a real reputation-builder." Bright suggests that prior to promoting an employee to an IT director role it is useful for that person to spend a stint working within another area of the organization -- preferably one they'll be working closely with in their new role.

Either way, formalizing IT's job rotation program -- and IT's goals -- is an important first step. "Formalizing it allows you to capture the benefits," Bright says.

Courtney Macavinta is a Silicon Valley-based business and technology writer. Her articles have appeared in CNET News, Business 2.0, Red Herring, Wired News, and The Washington Post. She also is managing editor of  the online program The Online Family.