Job rotation and workers’ performance: Experimental evidence

This paper examines task rotation as a non-monetary incentive to boost workers’ performance. While financial incentives are often effective in enhancing productivity, they may be less feasible in environments such as public administrations, where job security and rigid compensation structures limit their impact. Using a controlled experiment, participants were randomly assigned to one of two main treatments and divided into workers and managers. In the baseline treatment, workers received a fixed payment to complete one of two tasks: (i) finding letters or (ii) adding numbers. Managers, who had no assigned tasks, earned their payoff based on the workers' performance. In the Competitive Rotation Treatment (CRT), workers competed for the opportunity to choose their preferred task. The findings show that performance-based task rotation significantly increases productivity and maintains this improvement over time. Additionally, top-performing workers often remained in their tasks, fostering more stable group dynamics.