Cross / Up Skilling

How many of you, have changed your job recently… OR how many of you   within the same organization and changed dept….

OR at least in the recent past , up skilled / cross skilled yourself OR  took additional  responsibilities ? 

Earlier , we wanted a job for our life…  Most of us were happy  to  work in the same job , for  the same organization until  retirement

But that is changing now  -  workers are considering or actively  seeking  further education and  training. What is driving this ?

Workers are up skilling in  order

• ·         to  gain  a promotion 
• ·         to  make an advancement with a new employer
• ·         to  enter a new field of work.

The responsibility  of skill development is shifting from  employers to  employee.

The good news for employers do invest in training and education ,  and  this investment is a key  motivator for  the valuable staff to  stay.

Highest  Return on  Investment is from  retention of your  people  and it is NOT  from  hiring off the street.  Because we are investing in people , whom you  know and people who  know your organization.  If you  have limited amount to  spend, and there is an opportunity to  train some body , will drive more value to the organization.

Cross training also  helps to  make your  employees  feel  more  valuable, because they  can perform different task. It also  add challenge to a job that is fairly  routine  or repetitive task.  For  physical  work  task, cross training can also  help to  avoid , repetitive strain injury.

By  investing the time and energy in cross training your  team , you  will  end up with most flexible and capable  work group. That will  help  us in  hitting the target numbers more consistently and reduce your stress level . Having a flexible work group, that adapt to  fluctuation in work load will make it easier to  schedule and complete the work.

10 20 70  rule of Cross Skilling

10%  class room  based training by efficient trainers.

20%  special project , seminars,  mentoring /coaching

70%  learn on the Job

Advantages  for the employees.
1)    Cross training your employees  allows them the ability to  understand the scope of your business.
2)    Building employees confidence, while teaching them new skills and developing strong team relationship.
3)    Cross training your employee will  boost their moral and motivation

Advantages for the Employer.

1)    Stability, flexibility , efficiency and value is what you receive from your employees.
2)    Cross Trained staffs creates less issues
3)    The company  will  not have to  hire a many  new employees.
4)    Having a staff that knows  the company’s DNA , makes  it easier to  promote  from  within.

When employees are NOT cross Trained
1)    Their motivation begins  to  decrease
2)    Daily  tasks becomes monotonous.
3)    Employees begin to  lose interest and  feel disconnected with the company.
4)    When employees are NOT cross trained, your company  lacks sustainability.

Forcing Cross skilling , initially  confuses people.  The person who  is best is doing something, felt the most threaten, when he/she  was asked to  do  something different.   Cross skilling forces people   to  come out of your comfort zone. When  you  disturb the status quo  , there is always going to  be some discomfort  and disruption for you  and for the trainees.  If you  continue that, they will  settle  into  the new normal.😏

If there is refusal  to  do Cross skilling -  what happens , use the dictator approach, "you  are fired" 

First  we need to  check  our own reaction….  Who  are you  to  refuse the thing that I  have asked you  to  do.. instead stay  calm in  that situation…  and say " that is an interesting reaction"

One way to  force Cross skilling at Junior level  is -  if your  skill  does NOT change your  pay does NOT change. Instead of tenure driven pay program, we can enforce a skill driven pay program.

Continued skill  development at all  levels is absolutely important.  We need to  create a learning organization -  To  have a learning organization , we need to constantly  grow and achieve the targets, we need to  have learning employees, everyone needs to  be constantly  growing, right from  the Senior Leadership. At senior level ,we can push more
E-learnings, exposure driven curriculum.

The world of work is constantly changing and evolving  and it is really  important to  stay  informed no matter what job or what industry that you  are in....   be looking at relevant  publications, podcast , ted talks, video… Take 10  or 15 mins a day  and dedicate towards it.

Cross skilling your  staff and expanding their knowledge is always a good  practice. But  in this  uncertain economic  conditions , it is an insurance policy for  the future.

Note: As a Director of Operations for the CDB-AIA Practice, have been implementing this  initiative since 2015.  The success rate is 70% , 30% of the associate are NOT patient enough  to complete the cross skilling  and learn  on  the job. After signing up for  cross skilling, they  drop  off and go  back  to  their  original  skill set. Due to  operation regulation, could not force them  complete their  cross skilling. But for now happy  with  the 70% Success rate. 🙂