Creating multi-skilled employees key to corporate success
MANY successful businesses believe that enhancing human capital can lead the company to a higher level of achievement in the long run.
It is one of the most important tasks of management to ensure that the company allocate sufficient resources in building a strong team consisting of highly competent people. In order to reach the goal, the management must pay attention to the human development process.
Building multi-skilled employees can be another area in human-resource development, and multiple-skill development can be beneficial to both frontline and back-end functions.
In the production environment, multi-skilled labour can help increase productivity and cost effectiveness through the combination of related functions, so that one person can perform several tasks with a shorter cycle time.
For example, an operator can learn how to set up the machine for the start-up of the operation or the change-over without facility technicians. Then he or she can also perform the production according to prescribed job description.
These multiple skills can eliminate waiting time for specialists and avoid redundancy of headcount, while production time can be compressed with the new scope of the work arrangement.
In respect of the back office, a good internal control system requires a properly designed organisation so that the check and balance can be maintained. However, this should not become an obstacle in developing multi-skilled professionals.
An officer in an administrative office can learn how to process documentation such as invoicing, purchase orders and quotations. This would help shorten the processing time and can also increase the service level to satisfy customers’ needs.
The benefits of developing people with multiple skills include:
lProductivity and efficiency improvement – In a labour-shortage situation, it is better to consider developing people who can perform several tasks in an appropriate balance of workload. |The integration of a related process performed by one person |can help add value to the business transaction with less time and manpower.
lGrowing people from within – By knowing more than a specific function, an employee can open up an opportunity to grow into other areas of the work. This is necessary when the company is looking for someone who can relocate to other countries where the business has been expanded. After gaining management skills from new experiences, the employee is prepared to take even more important assignments in the future.
lImproving the morale of employees – An employee receiving an opportunity to develop him- or herself is considered an important asset of the company. He/she can be considered as the talented or high-potential type of employee who deserves special treatment and a more challenging job opportunity, which may include both financial and non-financial incentives.
lStart-up of a new project – It is usually costly for a company to start a new organisation for a new business with a full team of people from the outset. It may be a better alternative to send a team of multi-skilled people for operational set-up, especially for an overseas assignment. This could help make the project study more feasible from the financial and risk-management point of view.
In order to be successful in developing people with multi-skills, the company needs to have a good plan and support from the management.
The process can start from screening the qualified employees for such |a development process. This can be followed by providing appropriate training and coaching from internal and external sources.
To prove that the employee is capable of handling multi-tasking, the management may need to give an opportunity with special assignments or job rotation for these people.
Learning is an ongoing process for everyone. With the capability to access knowledge freely through the network, developing people to perform multi-tasks can be possible in this new era.
We may see more multi-skilled people who can be more productive and efficient in the near future, which could become a competitive edge for a highly competitive company.
Yanyong Thammatucharee is senior vice president for Accounting and Finance at Central Marketing Group.|He can be reached at [email protected]
