Ready, Set, Rotate! - rotational training places employees in several positions over a period of time to find right job, includes related article

HR Magazine, Oct, 2001 by Martha Frase-Blunt

For a different spin on staff development, roll new employees through a variety of positions and functions until they land in the winning slot.

Sherrie Zapp is a long way from where she started 18 months ago. The University of Florida graduate, who holds a double major in finance and management, has just landed in Singapore, where she'll work on special financial projects for a division of Pratt and Whitney. She hopes the experience will help her land a full-time overseas posting.

Zapp's journey to this foreign land began when she attended a university job fair, where she visited the booth for United Technologies Corp. (UTC) of Hartford, Conn. Although she was being wooed by firms such as Ernst and Young and the Harris Corp., UTC's rotational job program caught her eye.

"The rotational aspect of the training was very attractive," she says. "I also liked the fact that I'd get a chance to touch the many products I'd be helping to support." (In addition to Pratt and Whitney, UTC owns Otis Elevator Co. and other manufacturing and engineering firms.)

She adds that the varied experience the program provides has been a boon for her. "Coming straight from college, I wasn't exactly sure what to do, not having had a 'real job' before," Zapp says.

And she admits to being surprised by her own adaptability. "It really becomes clear when you cross-train someone to replace you and you realize how much you've learned in a short period of time," she says. "I'm thankful I learned the skill of being able to move on and seek new opportunities without fear."

Win-Win

Today, entry-level rotational training is being applied more widely throughout organizations, both formally and informally. Streamlined companies have to do more with less, so it makes sense to develop employees who can jump in anywhere they're needed.

"Any remnants of 'silos' that exist these days have to be knocked down for organizations to function more effectively," says Nicholas C. Burkholder, who heads Human Resource Engineering Inc., a Manhattan-based consulting firm affiliated with the Bernard Hodes Group. "Rotational programs forge relationships that automatically do that."

He adds that "rotational training is a wonderful way for newly hired college graduates and others to be developed within an organization."

Wendy McChesney, manager of UTC's financial leadership program, agrees. "A well-structured rotational program can compress up to a decade of business experience into two years," she says.

She adds that rotational programs also pay immediate dividends to the divisions that host trainees, who frequently "bring an original perspective, a new way of doing things. They also bring with them best practices from their previous rotations and a host of valuable contacts from other areas."

Rotating employees through on-the-job learning experiences also constitutes an important risk-management tool for employers: By spreading institutional knowledge around a company, it's more easily retained when employees resign, retire or are laid off in numbers, as is becoming ever more common in these volatile times.

Welcome to Work Life

Typically, rotational training programs assign new hires to work for specified periods in various departments, business units or geographic locations. The programs usually seek to achieve one or more of the following goals:

* Assess new employees' interests and skills to determine their final placement.

* Allow deep immersion into the organizational business and culture.

* Acclimate employees to foreign environments.

* Groom future managers and executives.

Formal rotational training programs commonly target new hires fresh out of college or business school. Students are recruited directly into the program even before they graduate.

"The recruits are young; many have never held a corporate job and really don't know yet what it means to have a finance degree or an accounting degree," McChesney says.

Entry-level corporate rotational programs typically last for two years, during which trainees-sometimes called associates-move through three or four positions lasting six to eight months each. The starting salary in most rotational programs can be increased at a review following each rotation, or sometimes more often.

McChesney pre-assigns first rotations, which set the tone and quality of the experience. Thereafter, new associates give McChesney a list of six rotation preferences that vary by job type, subsidiary or location. She assigns each associate two mentors initially--one a senior staffer and the other a more experienced associate.

At General Electric Co.--a corporate veteran of rotational training--recent college grads and MBAs are hired directly into one of the company's seven rotational programs, not into a specific position. (The company's seven Leadership Development Programs include communications, engineering, financial, information management, operations management, technical sales and human resources.)

Over the course of the two-year program, GE trainees are transferred across locations and businesses, perhaps even out of the country. They earn a professional salary and can garner raises based on frequent evaluations by their direct manager or local program leader.