Job swapping or cross training can be a unique way to help your company stand out and increase employee satisfaction. Job swapping is when employees from one department work with another department for a period of time. Job swapping helps your company retain top talent, develop from within, and create engaged employees. It also helps build unity across departments, gives employees new skills, gives employees a deeper understanding of your company, and provides a new perspective on problems, if it is done right. Starting a job swap program or improving your old one can be difficult. Maybe your program slowly died off or you have no idea where to start. Here are some tips to improve or start your job swap program: 

Create a Clear Objective 

Having a clear goal for your job swap program and making it available for your entire company will help employees to transition into it more smoothly. Additionally, it will motivate your employees to participate more fully in the program. Create an objective and share it with all your employees.  

Focus on New Hires 

Putting new hires into your job swap program can give them a better understanding of your entire company earlier on. It also might be easier to use a job swap program on new hires than employees who have been part of the company for a long time.  

Make it Short 

Your job swap program doesn’t need to take years to complete. A couple months in different departments is enough to give employees the perspective they need. Figure out an amount of time that is easiest for your company.  

Job Shadowing 

It might not be practical for you to completely job swap. Instead of swapping employees for months or years at a time, you could have a job shadowing program. This is where employees swap departments for a day or two. You could do this once or twice a year. It will still give the benefits of job swapping, but in more manageable doses.  

Provide Incentives 

Your objectives might not be enough to motivate all your employees to fully participate in your job swap program. Consider making a reward system for those who help the most during the program. You can reward employees for sharing ideas for solutions to problems in other departments or showing enthusiasm.  

These tips can help you to improve or create an effective job swap program.