Democratic consulting firm encourages job diversity
Staff can swap roles and move to new positions
Thursday June 25, 2009 -- Camille Jensen
The consulting firm Touchstone, a recent winner of the WorldBlu Most Democratic Workplaces award, provides opportunities for staff members to use their strengths by exploring new positions in the company that enhance job satisfaction.

The 180 staff members at the Washington D.C.-based firm are able to experiment and move into new roles in two ways. The company offers “day trading” where people who have the qualifications can swap roles for a day, as well as an option to move to a completely new role, provided they recruit and train someone to fill their position.

Tony Summerlin, Touchstone’s vice-president and director of consulting, says offering staff members the option to move to new roles has a number of benefits, including greater retention, job satisfaction and skilled staff members throughout the company.

Summerlin cites the example of two enterprise architects the company hired, whose skill sets were needed for specific jobs. Because enterprise architects’ skills are more specialized, they often burnout, becoming bored with being tasked to doing the same job everyday.

This was the case at Touchstone with both architects reporting dissatisfaction with their work, but unwilling to give up their salaries, which are higher due to their job specialty.

“If they don’t want to do that anymore, all they have to do is train someone in what they know and mentor them and their salary will not be adjusted they will be compensated the same way and they can move to a new position,” says Summerlin.

By offering job diversity, Summerlin says the company creates well-rounded staff members who can advance their leadership, communication and other skill sets. The role switching not only prevents people from becoming bored, it also builds greater commitment as staff know there is room to grow.

“They are gaining a lot of breadth in their abilities, specifically in leadership capabilities that they wouldn’t have had otherwise,” he says, adding their skill sets also brings different perspectives to their new roles. “They know they can just move and use those skill sets.”

To learn more about the company, click here.

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