Job rotation – Implications for old and impaired assembly line workers

Abstract

The demographic change in Western societies leads to an increasing number of older employees in organizations. Furthermore, the percentage of employees with physical impairments increases with rising age. Job rotation is one intervention that aims at preventing unbalanced workload and increasing variation. However, systematic studies focusing on the effects of job rotation and on systematic job rotation schemes in practise are rare. The presented study analyzes job rotation in the automotive industry and its relationships to subjective and objective data with regard to an aging workforce and impaired employees. Our analysis showed that older and impaired employees rotated less. Employees who rotated between higher ranges of workstations assessed their job performance and health higher than employees with a smaller rotation-range. More job rotation was also correlated to less absenteeism. Additionally, impaired employees had lower performance and health scores, and higher absenteeism than employees without impairments. Practical implications and limitations of the study are discussed.