With strategy emerging as an important buzzword
in all aspects of business, ‘Human Resources’ has
also begun to accommodate strategy as an important co-traveller in its journey ahead. In this context, Workforce planning has also shed its old garb of
catering to the workforce requirements of organization in the immediate future and instead has begin
to identify gaps and take steps to create an internal
labour market for workforce needs, arising not only
out of layoffs, terminations, resignations or retrenchments, but also changed job demands and changing
technology. Multi skilling is an engaging HR strategy
in this regard which helps the organisation adopt a
strategic flexibility to cater to the demands of the
competitive forces with its current workforce.
So what is Multiskilling? Multiskilling as defined by
Morley, Gunnigle and Haraty, (1995)is “the expansion of skills within a workforce or the ability of organisations to reorganise the competences associated with jobs so that the jobholder is willing and be
able to deploy such competences across a broader
range of skills.” Multi skilling encompasses adoption
of new skills, for jobs that are slightly/majorly different from the ones in which the employee is currently
engaged.
Multiskilling can be implemented through the use of
any of the stated methods:
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·
On-the- job training through Job rotation
·
Job Shadowing
·
Learning through observation, documents
·
Teams involved in cross-functional projects
·
Coaching/mentoring
The advantages of multiskilling for organisations are
many. The employer gets greater flexibility in terms
of workforce available for a given job. These multiskilled individuals become ideal candidates for job
rotation in the near future. Also because Multiskilling helps in identifying the competencies of an
employee, in terms of technical and functional competencies, it helps organizations choose the right
candidate for the right job at the right time.
Training of employees, in more than one skill, also
makes them capable of handling support functions,
symbiotic to the job at hand, thus saving the organization’s monetary resources in terms of additional
recruitment and staffing.
But does the employee gain by being multiskilled?
Yes indeed! With jobs becoming broader in their
definition and demands, the conventional one employee-one skill relationship does not hold true.
Most jobs require a dynamic increment in skills for
employees to remain relevant to the job and multi-
October 2014 |CONSILIUM