Why Role Rotation Is Important in Teams

Roles play an extremely critical part in a team effectively aiming to achieve team goal success. Roles ensure that a team effectively functions well together in order to effectively meet team goals effectively. Specifically, roles within teams can be identified and assigned through a variety of processes. One such way in which roles may be assigned within a team is through the conduction of a Belbin test.

The Belbin test effectively outlines nine team roles that teams may assign to individuals which best suits their personal behaviours. One example role includes Belbin’s Co-ordinator role, this role ensures that they are able to draw out team members and delegate work appropriately to best meet team objectives.

Although, it is noticeable that teams may utilise role rotation to effectively accelerate the success level. Specifically, role rotation within teams is present to effectively enhance the ability for teams to meet their goals at a much faster rate. This is due to role rotation; creates new innovative perspectives, develops employee skills, accelerates employee development, improves retention and increases employee engagement. The following expands in extensive detail the outlined reasons why role rotation is important in teams.

Creates New Innovative Perspectives

When roles are rotated teams are effectively able to find new innovative perspectives for completing tasks at hand. This means that when an employee takes on a new role within the organisation, they can effectively bring forward their knowledge, skills, thought process and style into the role. New perspectives through role rotation allow moments of team strains in finding solutions in certain areas to be resolved, this is due to a re-evaluation of the problem in the eyes of a new innovative perspective. In turn, role rotation is extremely critical in ensuring within teams whereby teams are shown to be increasingly successful within their operations as they create new innovative perspectives that may assist team problem-solving.

Develop employee skills

When roles are rotated within teams, team members are able to effectively experience the development of their individual skills. Through rotating roles, employees are placed into a new position within the team to effectively test their abilities. This allows employees to find new ways to solve problems at hand different from what they normally conduct within the team. Likewise, this effectively develops the employee’s skill as they are actively attempting to complete tasks different from their usual role. In turn, role rotation successfully develops employee skills which ensures it becomes critical for teams to undergo role rotation regularly.

Accelerates employee development

Role rotation within teams effectively allows for individual team members to develop their professional career positively. This is largely due to role rotation providing employees with the essential learning opportunities to undertake new experiences that wouldn’t be possible in a stagnant team role. Specifically, employees can undertake new experiences not previously possible within a team that didn’t utilise role rotation, this experience may include an increased leadership role that allows for the professional development of correlated skills necessary to future usage in employee careers. In turn, role rotation is critical in teams as it effectively allows the acceleration of employee development.

Improves Retention

Role rotation within teams is largely important as it can effectively improve retention. Specifically, this is due to role rotation effectively enhancing the attractiveness of working within the organisation for individual team members. Employees that want to experience new activities and challenges have the opportunity to meet their needs through team role rotation, an effective change to their normal activities. This means that employees will feel a lessened need to leave the organisation as they have the opportunity to continually experience positive career development opportunities working within a role rotating team.  In turn, role rotation is extremely important for teams as it can correspondingly improve employee retention levels.

Increases Employee Engagement

Role rotation further is extremely critical within teams as it increases employee engagement levels. When employees are undergoing role rotation, they are increasingly likely to become engaged within the organisation as they are undertaking new challenges within their teams. Employees can display more innovative skills that they were not able to display before without role rotation. Moreover, they become increasingly engaged in new tasks that require innovative problem-solving as they had not completed such activities before. Likewise, employees are challenged to work in a newfound way to develop team success. In turn, role rotation plays extreme importance in teams whereby it can effectively increase employee engagement levels.