Here’s an easy way to help IT employees further develop their technical skills — and their business knowledge, too.

Recent surveys have shown that tech workers value training and that helping them develop skills can be an effective way for companies to hang on to their IT staff. What’s an easy way to give them that, besides sitting them in a classroom for a training session?

Answer: job rotation.

Employees benefit by gaining skills to help their careers. And companies benefit by getting higher retention rates and a more competent technical staff. It can be an especially effective way to bring new hires onboard and prepare them for their work in the department.

And of course, it makes it easier to fill in the gaps if someone takes a vacation or leaves the company.

In addition to swapping within the department, you also might want to find ways to rotate employees into non-technical positions. That way, staff gains valuable business knowledge and gets primed for leadership roles. The same goes for the other way around — some companies have gotten successful IT-business alignment by getting non-IT workers to try IT jobs.

Tags: IT retention, IT-business alignment, job rotation, onboarding