Corporate Culture: Training, Part III

This next article of the series discusses the value of cross training. Now that you understand what to do to facilitate the training process, you need to consider cross training. Cross training by its very nature builds awareness and understanding of the greater organizational functions. It is a powerful business tool that takes advantage of your most valuable assets, your employees.

Done properly, cross-training will:

• allow you to provide greater profitability within your department allow you to properly support the business when an unforeseen absence happens in a critical area
• allow you to properly support a good employee when something in their personal life happens and they need to take a leave
• facilitate succession planning within the organization
• alleviate boredom and the potential injuries that lack of attention can cause

When you utilize cross training, the employee gains a broader understanding of how the organization works and how his decisions can affect other departments and the outcome of the process that has been implemented. The narrow, tight focused view of the employee gives way to a "big picture" understanding. This often leads to a higher level of thought by this employee that can lead to suggestions about ways to improve the very processes being performed. Cross training also leads to greater employee satisfaction with the function he is performing, because he understands how important his role is in the overall success of the organization.

Profitability is always on the mind of a good manager. Whether your decisions will make economic sense are paramount to your success as a new manager, so you need to find ways to use your most costly asset (people) to their greatest potential. You might not realize the cost of an employee, since most new managers only think of the hourly or salaried wages they earn.

The following is a breakdown of employee costs in general terms:

• Recruiting, including advertising, interviewing, testing, drug screens, and background checks can run up to $2500 per employee
• Benefits and bonuses can be from 20% to 45% of an employees annual wages. Some companies pay a portion of these costs, so the actual dollar figure for this will vary from company to company
• Wages

On average, an employee that earns $45,00 per year in gross wages will have cost the company from $56,500 to $67,750 to hire and employ for the first year. That means that the additional costs have to be made up in productivity. Now imagine that you can only work an employee 70% of the time because he only knows how to do one thing. That means that you lose 30% of this person's productivity per year. This employee is costing your company between $9,000 and $20,250 per year in lost revenue because you have to bring someone in to do the other 30% of the job he could be doing if he were cross trained. In addition, you are also paying this additional person's wages and benefits, which cost the company equal to what you paid the first employee, which now equals $18,000 to $40,500 per year in additional costs. By cross-training three employees, you have just saved the company between $18,000 and $40,500 per year in human resource costs, not to mention the other benefits of having a person you can trust to do the job right working on your projects.

The process of cross-training is the same process we discussed in the earlier training articles. The secret to a successful cross-training campaign is careful planning and timing that minimally affects the workflow, a consistent curriculum that builds on the skills already acquired by the employee being trained, and timing training classes close enough together to keep up the momentum of the process. Regular feedback and peer coaching should also be incorporated. Nobody knows the job being taught than those who are currently performing those tasks. Use their expertise in your training, but do not rely on them to do all of the training. They are not the teacher, you are.