Online betting firm Betfair recently rolled out a pilot executive rotation scheme for high-flyers in the IT department. The company hopes that rotating staff between departments will improve communication, trust and performance inside and outside the IT organisation.

The Key Talent Programme is the brainchild of chief technology officer (CTO) Rorie Devine, who is hoping to develop future chief information officer and CTO candidates. ‘We’ve selected a group of executives who will swap jobs – people from engineering will work in IT, and people with financial roles will work in exchange, for example,’ he says.

Devine says IT professionals can sometimes become narrow-minded – in professional terms – because the industry lends itself to specialisation. ‘So many people working in IT have a very narrow focus, and don’t understand the pressures of the wider organisation,’ he says. ‘Those aren’t the best people to run projects.’

Rotating will help executives to develop the two skills that Devine believes are key to IT leaders: managing supply and managing demand. ‘As an IT director, you manage the supply of technology and services, and you need to understand the demands of your stakeholders in the business and beyond,’ he says. ‘As an IT professional, you don’t normally have exposure to the demand.’

Executives will switch into general roles – Devine believes switching into a specialist role would be impractical – for several weeks at a time. ‘We want them to develop transferable skills, and focus on leadership, communication and team working, rather than specifics.’

Both Betfair’s CIO and CTO have had spells of working in non-IT roles themselves. And the firm’s chief executive is a former CIO with a great knowledge of both IT and business. ‘It’s a culture we’re looking to foster and is a real priority,’ says Devine.

The pilot will run for 12 months before being reviewed, although there have been some early challenges. ‘We had to think about how people would respond to the scheme, and communicate consistently so people understand what we were doing and why,’ he says. ‘Without that, people who aren’t selected could feel they are not being developed, while people filling the gaps of rotating staff can feel they are second choice.’