What is employee movement in human resources

What is Employee Transfer?

Employee Transfer is the process of horizontal movement of an employee, wherein there is a change in the job, without any changes or revision in the remuneration, pay, and modification of responsibilities. It is a form of internal mobility, in which the employee is shifted from one job to another usually at a different location, department, or unit.

Transfer can either be temporary or permanent depending on the decision of the organization, and it is initiated by any of the two, i.e. employer or employee. Sometimes, it also includes promotion, demotion or even no change in the status and responsibility.


What are the reasons for Employee Transfer?

Every organization has a defied criteria for the transfer of employees, and it also varies from individual to individual. The primary reasons for employee transfer are mentioned here:

  1. Some positions require distinctive skills, competency, and expertise from the transferred employees.
  2. The transfer is also affected when there is a shortage of employees in one department of the organization due to high demand, and there are surplus employees in another department. So, the workers are shifted from one department to another.
  3. It is also initiated when there are some clashes between the superior and subordinate or between two workers.
  4. To break the monotony of the work, employees are transferred, as the productivity of an employee decreases by doing the same job again and again.
  5. An employee may request the human resource department, to transfer him to another location, due to health issues because the climate is not suitable for his/her health.
  6. Female employees commonly request a transfer when they get married, and they have to live with their spouses.

The transfer may be requested by the employee himself or by his immediate boss (superior) or by the manager of another department

What are the types of Employee Transfers?

1. Production Transfer‍

Production transfer is usually practised to prevent lay-off that is to say when there is a surplus of the workforce in the factory,  excess workers are laid off. But,  if they are transferred to another factory or plant, where there is a shortage of labour, the massive layoff can be.

2. Replacement Transfer‍

This form of transfer also helps in preventing lay-off of senior employees by replacing a junior employee. The organization opts for this transfer when there is a continuous decrease in the operations, and the organization wants to retain an employee who has been serving the organization for a long time.

3. Versatility Transfer‍

To make the employees competent and versatile, these transfers are initiated. It is also called job rotation which can be commonly seen in banks where employees working at clerical levels has to work at different profiles.

4. Shift Transfer‍

In general, industrial establishments operates on rotational shifts, and the workers usually request a transfer to the shift of their choice.

5. Remedial Transfer‍

When the initial placement of an employee is faulty, or the worker is not comfortable with the superior or with the coworkers, or there are some health issues, then these transfers are affected as a remedy to the situation. As the transfer is requested by the employee himself, it is also called s a personal transfer.

There are several benefits of transfers which includes improvement in skills, employee satisfaction, better employer-employee relations, the remedy to faulty placement, etc.

What are the rules relating to Employee Transfer?

  1. The transfer must be clearly, stated as temporary or permanent.
  2. Transfer criteria should be laid down clearly and strictly complied with.
  3. The interest of the organization should be kept in mind while framing the transfer policies.
  4. The effect of transfer on the salary and other things of the transferred employee must be specified clearly.
  5. The frequency of transfer must be known to all the employees along with the minimum period of transfer.
  6. The performance of the employee must be evaluated before making the transfer, to a different job or department.

There are some problems associated with the transfers such as employees may not like or fit the new location, or it may decrease productivity, or it may reduce their interest in the job, which leads to employee dissatisfaction.

We can all get bored easily, whether it’s wanting a new phone, a new car or new TV show to watch. But when an employee gets bored of their job role, this can spell trouble for your business.

Being able to spot job dissatisfaction is critical, whether in the form of boredom, lack of development or lack of interest in the role itself, and how you can intervene as a company to move staff around, providing employees more opportunities for job growth and preventing them from hunting for a new job.

Job Dissatisfaction: How it can affect you

From demands for flexibility, additional benefits or increase in pay, it can be hard for employers to understand why dissatisfaction, lack of motivation and boredom can cause major issues for their business.

After all, most employees usually complain about stress, heavy workloads, and lack of work/life balance. Whilst these factors can cause dissatisfaction, boredom with daily tasks, lack of motivation to perform for a specific team/manager or lack of opportunities for promotion or development can cause colleagues to question their place in a company, leading them to seek other forms of employment and to disengage with your company.

But how can you help to avoid this?

1.    Build a Flexible Culture

It’s important that you begin to build a flexible company culture – flexible on working patterns, flexible on job roles and flexible when it comes to opportunities.

A flexible business culture will allow for increased internal staff movement in a well-planned direction, ensuring colleagues can take hold of new opportunities without affecting the performance of teams and departments.

2.    Encourage Staff Honesty

Once you have a flexible culture in place, it’s important that you can encourage your staff to be honest about how they feel about their job roles. Whether they might feel bored or lack interest in their tasks, are dissatisfied with how a team is managed or level of experience within the team or feel a lack of opportunity for promotion or development of skills, it’s important that colleagues can be as honest as possible with you.

Talent retention is key – by encouraging staff honesty, you can identify what skills could be at risk, what your colleagues desire for their career in your company and how you can best support them to get them there.

3.    Act on Feedback

It’s not enough to simply listen to honest colleagues, make false promises or place temporary sticking plasters over issues such as salary or benefit bumps.

If a colleague is completely dissatisfied with their work or feel stuck in a rut due to a lack of promotional and development opportunity, they will leave. In the year of the ‘Great Resignation’ as the pandemic has caused the workforce to re-evaluate their lives and what they seek from their work and personal lives, if you aren’t meeting colleague needs, they will seek these desires elsewhere.

However, you decide to review feedback from colleagues, from 1-1s, focus groups and wider departmental meetings, it’s important to always act on it. Listen to that career-driven employee hungry for a promotion and increased responsibility; listen to that newly-returned Mother seeking a role she wants to commit to whilst having the flexibility to prioritise family life when needed.

Whatever the feedback, it’s important to act – to ensure that you keep valuable skills in an age of career movement, that your staff continue to perform for your business, remain happy and committed to maximising company performance while you give back to employees through increased opportunity, skills and learning development.

David Bell is CEO at The HR Department

What are the types of employee movements?

Here are four types of employee turnover you need to analyze:.
Voluntary Turnover. No organization is immune from voluntary turnover. ... .
Involuntary Turnover. Involuntary turnover is when the company asks an employee to leave. ... .
Retirement. ... .
Internal Transfers..

What is an employee movement Why is it important?

The most basic employee movement definition encompasses the transfer of employees from an organization to another. It provides insights about the health of the company pertaining to employee satisfaction and engagement levels.

What is the meaning of staff movement?

noun. Personnel who assist their superior in carrying out an assigned task. movement. noun.

Why is movement important in business?

Movements are about making a difference in the world. They intrinsically motivate people to action. They are filled with a sense of purpose. A strong purpose makes the firm feel as if it's engaged in something that's honorable, almost a crusade.