quitting cannot be rotated

Many of us at least once in our lives got tired of monotonous tasks, dreamed of slamming the door at work and fly to Bali, throw away your passport and surf for the rest of your life go into the sunset. Rotation helps to avoid rash scenarios and not get bogged down in the endless cycle of searching for a new job. Today I, Asiya Morozova, head of personnel training and adaptation at MTS Digital, will tell you what it is, how it happens and when an employee can be rotated. I'm waiting for you under the cut!

What is internal rotation and why is it needed?

Internal rotation is the transfer of an employee to another position or to another division within the same company. For example, you worked as a tester for four years and got bored and wanted to seriously change something. Of course, you can quickly take some courses, rewrite your resume, change companies – and do this every time you get bored, and turn gray from stress. Or you can go to a career consultant and think about what opportunities for development you have right now. At MTS, in such cases, we offer rotation to employees – for example, the same tester can become a programmer. Recently, I have had cases where employees from the role of engineer were rotated to the roles of lead developer and DevOps. Spoiler: everything went great.

Main advantages of rotation:

1. No stress almost. There are fewer blind spots in rotation than in external search, which means there is a lower risk of choosing the wrong ones. While on a current project, you can visit demo teams, take a closer look at their culture and values, choose the top for yourself and join the rotation. During rotation, an interview is also conducted, but it is simpler. In addition, there is no worry associated with looking for a new job “from scratch”: you don’t have to guess from the tea leaves which promises are true and which are a figment of the employer’s imagination.

2. Easy adaptation. The employee is already involved in the company’s culture, shares its values, understands processes and services, and even knows where to get the best coffee in the office. At most, he will have to adapt to the new team and tasks.

3. Stimulus for a “second wind”. A burnt-out employee may feel that his work and knowledge are not so necessary and that it is better to start all over again. But the effect of novelty after rotation can become a motivational “shot” for a new career turn. It often turns out that your experience was very valuable and can be applied to a new position – what is not the foundation for a career takeoff?

For the company, rotation also has some advantages: turnover is lower, and the loyalty and level of trust of employees is higher. The guys see what career paths they have, understand that they can develop not only vertically, but also horizontally, and feel that they are supported.

Five types of rotation

We figured out what rotation is and what its advantages are. Now I’ll tell you about the types of rotation – yes, yes, everything is not so simple!

1. Rotation with promotion. This is the same “vertical growth” when a vacancy opens in a company or one’s own team. For example, a junior analyst becomes a senior analyst, and a leading developer becomes a team lead. This is perhaps the most popular type of rotation. Usually accompanied by training so that the employee masters new competencies and copes with tasks that were previously solved at a higher level. Well, without practice, of course, you can’t get anywhere. At MTS, managers delegate their tasks to employees who are promoted, appoint them as mentors for newcomers, assign them their tasks during vacation, that is, they give them every opportunity to master a new role. The most important thing here is to properly plan the transition and train the employee so that he is truly ready for the new position.

2. Rotation with change of direction. And here I’ll immediately give my example: I came to MTS as a recruiter, but almost immediately took on additional tasks of adapting newcomers and organizing soft skills training. Having gained experience, I completely went into the direction of adaptation and training. Of course, I also had to master the methodology of project activities and train as a business coach at the same time.

   Changing your role within a company, again, has many advantages. There will be no significant losses in working conditions, you can master a new area in parallel with your current role, in parallel with your main job, gain experience in related teams – and without such experience, a candidate will not even be considered on the external market.

3. Rotation with expanded functionality. Sometimes you don’t even need to change the role or product, it’s enough to redistribute tasks within the team. That is, “reassemble” the employee’s tasks. It turns out that he remains in the same place, but the field of activity completely changes. Voila – there is an opportunity to develop new competencies and realize potential. At MTS, I do such reassemblies in my team once every six months or a year. For example, I give projects to improve competencies in HR analytics, facilitation, event organization, project management, and so on. These are always growth tasks that help employees be more effective from a business point of view and contribute to their motivation.

4. Rotation with avoidance of demotivating circumstances. It is also called “rotation from”. For example, when an employee wants to leave the team because he cannot find a common language with colleagues or management. This is always a wake-up call for HR: you need to check whether the team is following ethical and business standards. It may also be due to the employee avoiding growth points: perhaps he has not learned to give open feedback or accept it from colleagues. Then the old difficulties will arise in the new place. It is important that, as a solution to the problem, the employee chooses not to flee, but to go to career counseling and understand his true motives. Then it will become clearer where and how to move forward.

5. Forced rotation. This is when the company was overtaken by restructuring, project financing stopped, the product was closed, and so on. Unfortunately, in the modern world these are quite everyday situations. As a result, employees may be asked to move into roles that they are not particularly happy with. Most often, such rotation is perceived negatively by employees. The best thing that can be done here is to enter into an honest dialogue between the employee and the employer and discuss scenarios for the development of a career track in a specific situation for a specific employee.

How a career consultant helps during rotation

I have already described the superpowers of a career consultant in my last post. Now I’ll tell you exactly how a career consultant can help if you have a goal to rotate.

Firstly, it gives maximum information about how the rotation process is organized, what scenarios work for a specific case – that is, it lays out what steps await you. You are not in the dark, and the prospect of rotation turns from something vague and theoretical into a clear and structured process.

Secondly, the consultant helps you decide what kind of rotation you need – and whether you really need it at all. Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish between your ideas and the “viral” ones. It always seems like the grass is greener somewhere. A consultant will help you get back on the path to career planning and soberly assess your prospects.

Thirdly, a career consultant provides the employee with a field for decision-making. You realize that you can influence your career right now, rather than waiting for the company to read your thoughts and decide everything for you. Sometimes it helps to completely reconsider your role and find something that suits you much better. And a career consultant is always about support. It will help you form a loyal attitude towards the rotation process and highlight career prospects that you might not have noticed before.

Well, to summarize, I’ll show you recent feedback from our employee Vlada Fionova: a year ago, from the role of an engineer, he was rotated to the role of a leading developer in the “Customer Experience Platform” IT cluster.

“At first I worked as an engineer. Everything was great, but over time I wanted to create a product myself, so I began to think about the role of a developer. Rotation was a great way to get there. A career consultant helped me understand this process and what stages awaited me. I don’t even remember any difficulties, the emotions were still pleasant. Overall, the rotation took me about a month. I've been a lead developer for a little over a year now and I'm loving it. In my case, rotation turned out to be a great option to grow within the company.”

When can you rotate?

At MTS, we highlight the possibility of rotation at the stage of selection and adaptation, that is, all newcomers already know about this possibility. Typically, employees resort to it if they feel that they are working out of place, that expectations do not correspond to reality, if they want quick career growth, or, again, “the work is not going well.” And it happens that an employee has already decided to rotate and comes to a career consultant for a specific algorithm of actions.

There is no specific period of time that you “need” to work in the company before applying for a rotation. This is not a bonus given for long service. And one more thing: rotation does not mean betraying your team. But many employees perceive it this way: they think that the desire to change their role could worsen their relationships with colleagues. And people are also afraid that the rotation will end in failure and then you won’t be accepted back. It is important to clarify here that an adequate company and team are always interested in the development of employees. No one has the goal of forever imprisoning you in an unloved project. So if you don’t like your job, it’s better not to endure it, but to analyze the situation and think about how and what exactly can be changed here and now.

That's all for today. If you have had rotation cases, tell us about them in the comments – I’ll be interested to read.