I worked for a Japanese corporation, and a big part of their HR policy, was to move staff around the company. It was usually in 1- or 2-year stints (people would spend their entire careers at the company, so they could do this). Eventually, they would end up doing longer stints, where they would specialize.
They would couple this with things like standardized coding and documentation styles, common tools, etc. Training on these standards was a regular thing for all staff.
The idea was that they could rapidly move experienced staff around. It also helped staff to understand how their work was applied in an integrated system (having “blinders” on, is a fairly typical issue, with dedicated employees).
It generally worked, but relied on their particular culture, and introduced a fairly significant amount of overhead and rigidity to the system. It would also mean that it takes a long time to cultivate experts.
Personally, I’ve always enjoyed learning new stuff (still do). I actually enjoy taking on projects that I don’t know how to do. I wrote about it here: <a href="https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships-are-built-for/" rel="nofollow">https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...
I've been at U.S. companies that paid lip service to this flexible sort of coverage, but once you are actually useful in the dept you're in, your boss never wants to let you go because upper management didn't build in the redundancy to the headcount to ensure you'd be effectively replaced...
This is also part of the system for doctors in the US, it's called residency. During residency rotations the residents (who have already graduated medical school) go through structured clinical training with patients within each medical specialty, supervised by an attending physician.
ChrisMarshallNY · · focus · HN ↗
They would couple this with things like standardized coding and documentation styles, common tools, etc. Training on these standards was a regular thing for all staff.
The idea was that they could rapidly move experienced staff around. It also helped staff to understand how their work was applied in an integrated system (having “blinders” on, is a fairly typical issue, with dedicated employees).
It generally worked, but relied on their particular culture, and introduced a fairly significant amount of overhead and rigidity to the system. It would also mean that it takes a long time to cultivate experts.
Personally, I’ve always enjoyed learning new stuff (still do). I actually enjoy taking on projects that I don’t know how to do. I wrote about it here: <a href="https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships-are-built-for/" rel="nofollow">https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...
tomaskafka · · focus · HN ↗
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tacticalturtle · · focus · HN ↗
No, residency is within a specific specialty only.
It’s more like the clinical rotations that occur in year 3 and 4 of medical school in the U.S.