Why is cross training important

Please note that this is an informal learning option for staff to avail of as they wish based on the information and guidance below, not a centrally managed programme.

Cross-training allows the "visiting" staff member to be trained and preform specific functions related to a particular job while job shadowing allows the employee to gain knowledge and understating about the responsibilities and tasks in a particular job. Overall, cross-training allows the Organization to provide staff members with opportunities for continuous learning, contributing to improvements in organizational effectiveness and efficiency.

Visiting staff are expected to return to their regular role and functions upon completion of the cross-training. Skip to main content. What is cross-training? In this instance, you should implement purposeful cross-training that will allow uninterrupted completion of those duties, while capturing the institutional knowledge of the retiring employee.

Consider pairing the retiring employee with a capable replacement to learn the role over an extended transition period. While this scenario is reactionary, a pro-active cross-training program can mitigate risks of information loss long before an employee decides to retire or quit. Cross-training needs to be consistent, planned and organized. Define what makes the role successful.

What will be accomplished and what knowledge and skills will be required? Be specific. The cross-trained employee should know exactly what the new work entails and what is expected. From there, determine if your process or steps are accurate, usually the person in the role can validate the process. If not, then make adjustments. Like any new process, things work better after a few iterations.

The goal is to build and fine tune a plan to consistently cross-train employees for a critical role or specific skills.

This process is similar to what would occur when onboarding a new employee. Remember: Employees are learning something new and will need support. There will be a learning curve. Allow for this in the implementation period.

From the outset, clearly communicate your rationale and goals. Begin by selling them on how individual employees may benefit:. Beyond that, talk about how the experience and training will help the company. Paint the larger picture for them. If presented correctly, cross-training can be an opportunity to get staff members excited about taking on new types of assignments and growing their careers while helping the company. Be especially thoughtful about how you approach employees who stonewall your coaching efforts.

Note that some people may see the addition of another task as punishment, which could lead to dissatisfaction because you are adding to their workload. Try to anticipate and address these worries upfront. Nothing stops employee initiative faster than the perception of a dead-end job. If employees know there are opportunities within the company for growth, their motivation to seek out those training opportunities and the corresponding increase in pay grows.

More motivated employees will gravitate towards additional opportunities for career growth and mobility. Imagine the three legs of a stool. If one leg falls off, the stool is useless.

Now imagine a company in which only one employee knows anything about a process or a procedure. What happens if that person takes maternity leave or becomes ill and needs time off? Cross-training employees holds up the seat of your business, even when your resident expert steps away. This makes your business more sustainable, even in times of transition. This activity in and of itself increases efficiency, especially in small businesses where each employee already has multiple layers of responsibility.

Honing the skills needed and figuring out how to efficiently and effectively transmit them can help streamline every aspect of your business. This necessarily makes your company more agile and responsive, no matter the size or industry. It also makes you more flexible with scheduling and filling last-minute vacancies. To start, some employees may view cross-training as an added responsibility with no added pay.

Sure, you want to get the highest level of productivity out of your employees while still protecting your bottom line, but the risk of burnout is high when you add too much, too fast. You want employees to know that you value their abilities, not that you think of them as beasts of burden. Another potential risk is building a company filled with generalists. Cross-training helps build a culture of collective success.

When your staff encounters challenges by working together and drawing on their shared pool of knowledge and skills, they build confidence and take real pride in the outcome. As your staff learns to work together using their array of skills, they build trust so they can continue to support each other in new ways in the future.

Devra Gartenstein founded her first food business in In she transformed her most recent venture, a farmers market concession and catering company, into a worker-owned cooperative.