Managing the workforce in uncertain times
Responding in a timely and effective manner to changing market demand and customer flows, organizing activities to meet seasonal market demand, dealing with production peaks, and replacing workers for planned or sudden absences.
These are just some of the challenges that companies face every single day, even without considering the ongoing impact of evolving health regulations on daily staff management.
To grow in this environment, companies seek greater flexibility in resource management and actively work to respond appropriately to long, medium, and short-term needs — ranging from scheduled leaves and time off to workload peaks, illnesses, and injuries. More often, organizations commit to creating and implementing skill and functionality matrices, believing this alone is enough to achieve their goal.
(A quick note for our readers: in this context, “multi-skilling” or “cross-skilling” refers to the ability to swap tasks with colleagues within the same functional area, while “cross-functionality” refers to the ability to perform entirely different roles and functions outside of one’s own).
Department heads, either on their own or “guided” by external vendors, sit around a table and list the tasks and skills required for a specific role. They debate each point, sometimes not without conflict, to determine who is independent, who still needs support, and who can teach others.
However, after months of effort and several implementation attempts, something occasionally fails to click. Not all trainees reach the expected level of autonomy, only a few are ready to take on new tasks and responsibilities, and the veterans continue to bear the brunt of all requests from less experienced colleagues. Among the learners, some seem sharper, more motivated, or more willing than others; among the tutors, some appear more effective, patient, or naturally inclined to teaching. As a result, the project is put on standby, and, in the best scenario, companies seek the help of specialized professionals. Indeed, as a consulting firm, we are increasingly asked by clients to help implement multi-skilling, cross-functionality matrices, and succession plans.
Where companies fall short: common pitfalls in workforce planning
When we review the documents produced and ask questions to understand what has been done up to that point, we often find a few recurring mistakes.
The activities populating the matrices are described in terms that are far too broad and generic, and the phrasing used can often be interpreted in several different ways depending on who reads it. For instance, terms like proactivity, precision, and accuracy (which label attitudes rather than actual behaviors) are too vague to describe the results to be achieved or the behaviors to be practiced.
In the “task” lists, activities are sometimes confused with role competencies or even role requirements. Phrases like project management skills, interpersonal skills, and communication skills mean very little unless the expected behaviors are clearly described. Moreover, they are entirely out of place when populating a multi-skilling matrix.
Speaking with the people involved, we realize that while the chosen tutors were highly skilled technically, they lacked the ability, and sometimes even the motivation, to teach. All too often, these “teachers” have not been properly prepared for the task: they have no idea, other than intuitively, how to organize an on-the-job training plan, nor what aspects to focus on to establish a good and productive relationship with the trainee.
Finally, we find that the basic tools needed to support learning and track progress over time were either not provided at all, or, if available, were ill-suited for the purpose because they were borrowed from other departments (typically Quality Assurance) whose goal was certainly not to facilitate the learning of new activities.
The ingredients for an effective multi-skilling project
To implement and sustain workforce flexibility over time, companies must follow a structured method for Instructional Design and take several core elements into account:
1. Define the Performances
To populate a multi-skilling matrix, you must start with the desired performance, meaning the result (and sub-results) the person needs to achieve, and then break it down into the specific actions required at different workstations or during different phases of the process. Only in this way will the activities included in the matrix be exactly what is needed to achieve the desired outcomes.
2. Describe the specific actions needed to achieve Performance
When documenting activities, care must be taken to objectively describe the individual behaviors the person needs to exhibit (a technique technically known as Pinpointing).
Once these descriptions are written, especially when you are first starting out, it is useful to ask yourself: “If someone else reads this description, would they be able to identify exactly the same behavior I have in mind?” If the answer is yes, you have likely done a good job of Pinpointing,
if the answer is no, you need to rephrase it.
Another good test is to go to the shop floor with a colleague who was not involved in drafting the descriptions and calculate the percentage of agreement based on live observations (a more time-consuming but extremely effective procedure).
Taking this extra step ensures that only activities that are truly “open-to-interpretation-proof” are included in the multi-skilling matrix. Furthermore, focusing on accurate Pinpointing will facilitate communication between tutors and trainees throughout the entire learning process.
3. Monitor progress
Once the matrix is created, the activities and sub-results the trainee must achieve to be considered independent are listed for each phase and/or workstation. This list (also known as a “task register“) constitutes the entire training curriculum. Building and sharing it is essential to achieving full consensus among all parties regarding the “learning contract.” Above all, the register is a practical tool: it helps trainees and tutors track progress over time, quickly identify which activities are still to be learned, and highlight steps to review together to reach the desired level of autonomy.
Much like a university transcript or student record book, it is important for the trainee to keep it, and for the tutor to fill it out during joint sessions to officialize every milestone achieved. When done correctly, this practice triggers the trainee’s reward and gratification mechanisms, significantly boosting their motivation.
4. Create visual instructions
Imagine having to assemble a new four-door sliding wardrobe from IKEA for your bedroom without the usual visual instructions. Armed with patience and goodwill, you might eventually succeed, but a single weekend probably wouldn’t be enough to finish the job. This is exactly the situation many “victims” of workplace multi-skilling find themselves in when they aren’t provided with the proper tools. Because of this, a fundamental piece of Instructional Design involves selecting the essential instructions and building a manual packed with images and photos. These should clearly display both the actions to take, and the results achieved at every workstation or during every phase of the process. To create it, it is crucial to involve a subject matter expert (such as one or more of your designated tutors) to take the photos or screenshots that will populate the manual.
5. Empower and train tutors
Once the materials are ready and the tutors have been selected, a critical step is to explicitly give each of them the responsibility of training a specific person, clarifying the learning objectives. For example: “Luca, starting next week, you will shadow Michele, and for the next month, you will teach him these 20 activities. The goal is for Michele to be completely independent in these tasks by the end of next month and able to start the production line on his own.” The tutors’ engagement will be even higher if they are personally involved in building the manual and the task register.
The second step is to prepare the tutors for their role. Companies are full of technically skilled people—men and women who have acquired specialized expertise through years of hands-on experience. However, these individuals are not always able to teach others for the simple reason that nobody ever taught them how to do it. For this reason, the “last mile” of the project, before hitting the shop floor, must be dedicated to tutor training.
In a few targeted sessions, the principles of learning and teaching must be explained: how to organize and break down the learning path by creating intermediate exercises of increasing complexity, how to communicate effectively, and how to structure individual learning sessions. Unfortunately, we have grown accustomed to a format of training made of lectures and poor on practical exercises, but that is not how we learn. Real learning happens by having the trainees do the job with their own hands, asking them open-ended questions so they can think for themselves, and providing timely, mostly positive feedback.
Therefore, before launching on-the-job training, a specific module must be planned to teach tutors how to motivate trainees, encourage them to think independently, give effective feedback, and build a strong relationship with the apprentice. Finally, at least during the initial sessions, it is advisable to have newly certified tutors shadowed by colleagues or external experts who, mastering the teaching method, can provide immediate feedback on their behavior during individual training sessions. This practice strongly supports tutors in applying what they learned in the classroom and holds them accountable for using the teaching method correctly.
Each of these elements constitutes a fundamental building block in designing effective training, and during execution, it allows learning times to be cut—even by half—thereby accelerating the person’s deployability across multiple tasks. If implementing all these actions seems like a significant drain on energy, try to think about how much time and money is wasted organizing and running rushed projects that yield poor results. Not to mention the sheer frustration felt by trainees, teachers, department heads, and project sponsors alike!
Proven success: the real-world benefits of this approach
“With Lenovys, we created a comprehensive and standardized teaching system that allows everyone to quickly integrate into our complex and structured company ecosystem. The real value add was providing tutors with a unique method to teach, structure a training plan, and consequently grow both professionally and personally. Today, our tutors are more aware of their role and are faster at training new colleagues.”
Eleonora Fava – HR Administartion – Marcegaglia Specialties
“The multi-skilling project has introduced a structured method for transferring technical knowledge among operators. Thanks to this, we have elevated and given an identity to the role of our Expert Operators by assigning them a specific responsibility for training new staff, something that previously happened in a less structured and standardized way. On some production lines, the work is quite complex, and I can see that thanks to this new system, new hires face their training with much less anxiety”
Leonardo Ricci – Production and Packaging – Cromology
“We have acquired a structured and shared teaching method. Our tutors are now fully aligned, supported by objective tools they can use on the shop floor. The trainees highly appreciated this type of training: they grew professionally, improved their relationship with their managers, and felt more involved and rewarded. Now, they truly take full ownership of their roles. The department heads are thrilled! We are already planning to extend the project to the rest of the packaging staff: we now have a method that allows us to know exactly how much time is needed to train someone and how to do it”
Lucio Fenati – Lean Policy Coordinator – Orogel
If you are also considering launching a multi-skilling project in your company, make sure to use an effective method and have an expert guide you through its implementation. To request information or speak with a Lenovys expert, please fill out the form below.
Article written by:
Marco Ferrante
Senior consultant
Psychologist specializing in organizational consulting and adult education. As a management consultant, he is an expert in professional training, recruitment, potential assessment, workplace climate analysis, skills assessment, and competency evaluation. He has worked with leading companies such as Marcegaglia, Orogel, Cromology, Snam, and BANCO BPM.
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