About 30 percent of exchanges have led to promotions or permanent changes within the organization and about 10 percent have left their department for other opportunities. Most returned to their previous positions, in part, because of the limited number of executive vacancies. A change in position doesn't always turn out as a person might expect: it might just be to help someone see their ideal job isn't a good fit.
Logistics also play a big factor. With only eight executive positions, promotions at the top can be frustrating. The county hasn't seen anyone get exasperated and leave, though. People still feel engaged and they can get big assignments. If not a new title, they gain confidence in themselves. What more can you ask for than employee engagement and retaining the best?
There are other benefits, too.
Rarely does everyone appreciate the work done by those around them, not even those they work with closely. Swapping jobs with someone else gives people day-in day-out experience with another angle. This new perspective helps people fundamentally adjust their usual work to accommodate the larger view.
Take for instance an exchange in the police department. Before this program began, a uniformed officer discovered a crime and then turned it over to a police investigator. Acting independently, even in a single department, hampered investigations. Instead of creating laborious procedures not guaranteed to work, the police chiefs of the two divisions swapped their positions for a year. By walking and driving miles in another's shoes, crime investigating improved tenfold. Officers saw gaps in their working knowledge and surfaced unanticipated assumptions that had limited their capacity to learn. From the exchanges, everyone reported they saw their roles in new ways and were more effective at stopping crime.
What happens in your organization when employees can't find their groove? Maybe they won't fit anywhere. More likely, their assets just don't match job. Other open positions might allow them to soar.
Take the case of the custodian deemed to be doing a crappy job. In his evaluation, it was also noted he was great at talking with people. The department and HR discussed options to probation. His supervisor was thrilled to have a chance to, even temporarily, backfill his job with someone else and the custodian welcomed the chance to prove he was a good fit in another department. After six months he was moved permanently into social services where he began training to become a case-aide. Now he's a successful, happy, and helpful social worker. All this from doing a poor job.
Employees who hold low-level positions can find themselves bored, and a bored employee is more likely to under-perform, or even look for new work. A job swap can breathe new life into a person's work day. Consider closing critical positions with people in other departments whose jobs wouldn't be as tricky to backfill.
During a crucial budgeting season, the county couldn't fill accounting jobs fast enough. The supervisor listed the foundation skills needed for the position and the HR team went to work seeing if they could find people in-house. Within a week, they found two qualified people voicing interest in an exchange. One was in grounds maintenance and the other was running after-school programs. Each was brought in for six months. One liked the new role and eventually took it full-time. The other hated the job, realizing he never wanted to work in accounting again. However, the people he worked with were impressed with his initiative to step outside his previous role and it eventually lead to a new job better suited for him.
Sometimes life events cause great employees to ask, "What else could I do?" Injury, illness, a move, needing to be home more with family, or any number of personal changes mean someone can no longer fulfill his or her job. The county is committed to their employees -- after all, they are also their county citizens, and they have found the exchange program approach helps meet everyone's needs. It's now part of their culture, it's how they work. They haven't seen any decrease in productivity and they have seen a huge increase in retention rates.
Extensive surveys with departments and people involved in the exchange program show it far exceeds people's expectations. No one seems to mind small disruptions in productivity when everyone has a chance to learn and grow. More than 90 percent rated the experience as positive also citing a strong interest in continuing to work for an employer committed to providing transformative opportunities.
Perhaps nothing illustrates the success of the program better though, than the experience of the County Administrator who was out of town during a Category I hurricane. Rather than return home immediately, he stayed put. He knew there was a cadre of people who could step in to fill his responsibilities and then people to fill theirs. They weren't just acting like they knew what to do: they knew what to do because they'd done it before.
Email
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Buzz Up!
LinkedIn
