Access to opportunity to improve work-related skills and career enhancement. Technical competence may be an initial requirement for being hired, but as the organization evolves, a job with technical growth potential may encourage workers to improve their technical skills through education or trade specific training.

Improvement Action: Promote job rotation to prevent burnout and increase skillset

Sources:              

P.G. Gyllenhammar, People at Work, Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1977 p90

  • GWT Analyst Summary: At Volvo Torslanda, job rotation began in the upholstery department, where it was introduced as a means to mitigate repetitive stress injuries and sore muscles. It was successful not only in reducing the occurrence of musculoskeletal complaints, but also resulted in employees who were able to do many other jobs. The increase in skills and rotation of tasks resulted in a higher quality of work life.
  • Excerpt from text: “Job rotation was the opening wedge [to the improvement evolution]. It started around 1964 in the upholstery department, for very practical reasons. Employees complained of sore muscles from doing the same operation over and over. They discovered that if they paired off and traded jobs every day or so, they were able to use different sets of muscles. From that ergonomic, down-to-earth beginning have grown most of the other changes that focus on the quality of work life more generally. Soon the upholsterers (mainly women) were trading among three of four, and the relief from wrist, arm, shoulder and back pains was far greater than anything they had been able to get from the small army of supervisors, doctors, safety specialists, and industrial engineers who had developed methods or mechanical aids to relieve their complaints.” p90

Semler, Ricardo. (1989). Managing without managers. Harvard Business Review. Sept-Oct 1989, pp. 76-84.

  • GWT Analyst Summary: Semco encourages their employees to rotate jobs every two to five years in order to stay engaged and motivated.
  • Excerpt from text: “We encourage - we practically insist on - job rotation every two to five years to prevent boredom.” p80

 

Improvement Action: Cross train workers to perform their co-workers tasks and learn more about the whole process

Source:

P.G. Gyllenhammar, People at Work, Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1977 p 91

  • GWT Analyst Summary: As cross training and job rotation began to expand at Volvo Torslanda, upholstery workers were trained to schedule their work based on the production schedule and attended training seminars to learn how to identify and repair quality defects. The department became more autonomous and required less supervisory control.
  • Excerpt from text: “Eventually the workers in upholstery were given responsibility for planning all their own work, a fairly complex task because the blue seat with the special fabric has to leave the upholstery group in time to reach  the assembly line at the right moment to meet the blue car with the special headliner. The planning had been a white-collar job in the past, but the group members, who alternated the paperwork task, had no trouble absorbing the planning. They get information on the assembly requirements from a teleprinter, and have to translate this into individual assignments. They have also taken over checking the quality of incoming upholstery materials, a job that used to require four inspectors. All the operators attended a short training program to learn how to find and identify all the kinds of defects and what to do about them.”

 

Improvement Action: Offer workers the opportunity to receive job-related skills (i.e. classes)

Sources:              

P.G. Gyllenhammar, People at Work, Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1977 p 86

  • GWT Analyst Summary: At Volvo Torslanda, management strove to provide opportunities for their workers to seek personal development. Training classes were offered in work related topics, allowing those who sought opportunities for career advancement to build necessary skills. Workers could gain specific knowledge they needed to apply for available positions within the company.
  • Excerpt from text: “Fourth, and increasingly important as we make progress on the other three fronts [mechanizing dirty heavy jobs, improve ergonomics of manual jobs, and building a committee structure], is personal development, the chance for individuals to learn more, to enhance their personal lives and careers through opportunities available within the company. Whether people are career-minded or not, they have chances now to learn what we do and how we do it, as well as to gain any specific knowledge they want.”

Vanderburg, David, “The Story of Semco: The Company That Humanized Work”, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 24, No. 5, October 2004, pp. 430-434

  • GWT Analyst Summary: Semco believes in providing opportunities for their employees to grow in their careers. The company trains employees and pays for schooling where necessary. Semco encourages their employees to rotate positions and gain new skills as they advance their career. The results for Semco are a more highly skilled workforce that is much more flexible. If an employee takes a leave of absence, it is more likely someone else can step in and fill the position.
  • Excerpt from text: “Employees are not limited by movement based on their resumes. Employees with high school diplomas have gone on to become financial or technical directors. Semco will even train people or pay for schooling if need be. The job rotation obliges people to learn new skills, and it discourages empire building. Employees also receive a much broader view of the company. It encourages the spread of diverse personalities, outlooks, backgrounds, and techniques. New and fresh visions are spread throughout the company. This also allows Semco to protect itself if an employee takes an extended leave or quits because there is always someone who can fill that position, be it temporarily or for the long term. This initiative also greatly benefited the workers who could now decide what they wanted out of their job and choose a position at the company that suited those needs.” p433