Multi-skilling : its impact on the organisation and employees

Abstract

Multi-skilling is a process where the employees are skilled in more than one job. It can lead to work improvements, hence producing higher quality standards. It also gives an advantage to employees to maintain their employability, because no company can guarantee its employees a job for life. Job rotation involves systematically moving employees from one job to another. Job enlargement is an alternative to job specialisation that involves more tasks to perform. As a result of job enlargement there is the need of more training for the employees. Job design offers opportunities for the companies to gain competitive grounds. Multiskilling offers real productivity gains for any company. Multi-skilling can help in reducing repetitive strain injures. The company should try to diversify the quality and quantity of time each employee engages on a particular job. By changing the job the employee is reducing the repetitive elements in a work cycle. Rewarding employees on the number of skills they know, can lead to greater motivation to learn new skills. Multi-skilling provides development and learning opportunities for the employees. It offers security to the employees. In this dissertation there are two case studies. One was conducted at Playmobil Malta Ltd, who officially introduced multi-skilling in 1993, and the other was conducted at Mc Neill Ltd, who officially does not have a multi-skilling system. Training is a key factor of multi-skilling. This helps the employees to be more flexible. It can help in reducing the long-term costs for the organisation and also helps in its diversification.