Multiple skills for sustainable business

Multiple skills mean expertise in more than one job or task. Multi-skilled employees are endowed with a number of different skills, enabling them to do more than one kind of work.  Creating multi-skilled employees can be an important area in human resource development. Multiple-skills development can be useful to both front office and back-office works. Like manufacturing and trading companies, banking industry also needs employees who can fit in many tasks. Advantages of multi-skilled employees are huge both for the company as well as for the incumbents themselves. Multiple skills can eliminate waiting time for specialists and avoid redundancy of headcount. There are some other advantages for a company having multi-skilled employees.      
FLEXIBILITY: A company with multi-skilled employees has a flexible workforce, which provides the employer with the ability to position personnel to best suit the needs of the business. Employees are able to fill in for absent employees and work in any area of the business that requires additional manpower at any time, and for any duration. It allows the institution to maintain the same level of output at any point of time.
EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION: Multi-skilled employees are not threatened by obsolescence when new technology is adopted or business dimension changes. As employees are used to learning new skills, they can adapt to changes quickly. This improves the level of employee satisfactio, which leads to increases in productivity and employee retention rates.
INCREASE IN PRODUCTIVITY:  Multi-skilled employee can easily adapt to workforce changes, such as sick leave, vacations, or fill in during times of high demand. The flexibility and diversity of work will allow employees to take over other jobs when necessary.
DEVELOPING HIGH-PERFORMANCE LEADERS: Multi-skills enable a company to develop high performance leaders. When an employee is given a choice to work in another task and if he or she wants to work there sincerely, then success in the job is inevitable. It is a chance for the employee to prepare him/her as future leader.   
GROWING HUMAN RESOURCES FROM WITHIN ORGANISATION: By knowing more than a specific function, an employee can open an opportunity to grow into other areas of the work. This is necessary when the company is looking for someone who can adjust to other new ventures where business has been expanded. After gaining management skill from experience, the employee is prepared to take even more important assignment in the future.
DECREASED EMPLOYEE COSTS: A business with multi-skilled employees can operate with a reduced number of human resources necessary to conduct regular works. Employees who are skilled in only one dimension of the occupation may sit idle while waiting for work to become available. A multi-skilled workforce moves with the workload instead of waiting for the work to come to them.
EFFICIENCY IN PLANNING:  When a customer requests faster delivery, planners can adjust the production/services schedule to meet the new date without disruption to production/services because all employees/workers can focus on the new customer demand. In a business with a flexible workforce, planning and scheduling activities can easily focus on customer demand.
CROSS SELLING: A multi skilled employee can easily sell products and services of other department without bothering others. Eventually this cross selling increases the productivity of a business institution like bank or similar institution.
IMPROVING THE MORALE OF EMPLOYEES: An employee capable of developing himself is considered an important asset for the company. He/she can be considered a talent or a high potential type employee who deserves special treatment and job opportunity, which may include both financial and non-financial incentives. This increases the moral of the employees.
START-UP OF A NEW PROJECT: It is usually costly for a company to start a new concern for a new business with full team of people since commencement. It may be a better alternative to send a team of multi-skilled people for operation set-up, especially for an overseas investment. This could help make the project study more feasible from the financial point of view.
For developing successful employees with multi-skills, a company needs to have a good plan and support from the management. The process can start from screening the qualified employees. This can be followed by providing appropriate training from internal and external sources. To prove that the employee is capable of handling multi-task, the management may need to give an opportunity with special assignment or job rotation. In today's competitive marketplace, in order to become high-performance players, employees need to possess a full range of skills. On the other side, employers should also take the chance of creating multiple skill employees.
(With the help of the internet)
The writer is Senior Vice President & Head of Business, Eastern Bank Ltd. [email protected]