help! why is cross training employees better?

Question

i am doing a presentation in crosstraining current employees instead of hiring more people and training them for specialized jobs. I need to persuade top level management that this is cost effective and more productive. The areas that i am currently going to explain are; Keys to keeping employee motivation and Retetntion, Benefits to Employer, Benefits to Employees, Benefits to Customers, Cost of hiring and training new employees, costof training current employees, cost to replace employees. I need more ideas on why getting more out of an employee is better than hiring more people. And i need any ideas to what i should add into the presentation.

Answer 1

It helps to speed up efficiency but be sure to never use it as an excuse to downsize or freeze hiring.

If used properly, cross training allows employees to understand the process for beginning to end. In this case, if one person had a question about a certain job, instead of spending 2 days trying to find the person who is responsible for that job, anyone in the company would have at least some idea. To this end, it helps with the overall communication within a company.

Employees who have it in their nature to question procedures might understand why certain jobs are preformed certain ways and be less likely to walk off in frustration. Likewise, since employees would also have a “taste” of what goes on in the company, it would offer more informative, constructive feedback and suggestions to management from their employees.

It would take far less time to train an employee to do a slightly different job than it would to train an entirely new person to do the job, if that employee already had an idea of what to do. A person who’s been with the company for some time already knows the policies and procedures, so less time would have to be spent with the basic “who’s who and what’s what” if an employee is transferred instead of new talent being brought in.

Customers would feel more confident in an employee who could at least answer some of their questions rather than an employee who can only answer 1% of their questions. Customer Service, however, is a hard sale to any upper management seeing as how it is only viewed as a money sink that sees little to no financial return, unlike Sales for instance. Then again, if the salesperson knew all of the procedures and the process behind each sale they made, this could save the customer much heartache down the line as it could help prevent miscommunication and reduce misinformation.

A word of warning to companies however, if this is used as a hidden excuse to downsize and employees notice, then there will almost certainly be a huge decrease in morale and possible issues with retention as people walk out of their current jobs for a different job with a different company. Honesty is always going to be the best policy and if this tactic is used in any dishonest way then it could backfire horribly.

Answer 2

It is more effective when an employee retires/quits/out sick/vacation/etc. There is another person that can step right in to do the same job without loss of production. This is the biggest advantage; no one is indispensable they are all replaceable on the spot. No training curve for replacement.
You also can shift people you already know around when one area is slow or another is overloaded with work.

It will build cooperation among workers as they "walk a mile in the other guys shoes". This in turn helps to stop whining that "his" job is easy or "she" doesn't do anything. It also insures employees that they have the chance to move into a higher paying job when an opening occurs. This leads to better retention.

As for fewer workers. The savings are obvious, fewer employees means less payroll, less fringes, fewer people that can get hurt (workers comp savings) and tighter knit personnel/ team work.

Answer 3

Cross training is a benefit to the employee as well as the employer. It gives the employee the chance to expand their experience and advance. It gives the employer the advantage of having someone to cover any specific job even when employees are out for sick leave, vacation, or vacated slots. In my experience as a former City Administrator cross training proved to be a win - win situation for both sides. Everybody grumbles at first, but once in effect the positive results begin to show and everyone will eventually agree it was the thing to do.

Answer 4

Cross-training is the biggest negative in the world!
Would you rather buy a very high ticket item from a company that specializes in one thing or a company that does a bit of this or a bit of that? I would go with the specialist because they put all there time and money into that line. Better sense to me. With crosstraining you are expecting to make a person knowledgeable in several areas and their mind is going to have to hold that all in. It leaves room for too much error with all the extra skills and it stresses people out big time.

Answer 5

Cross training is a corporate excuse to justify downsizing.

Answer 6

Reduce turnover and increase productivity.