The Best Backup Idea across - Training Your Employees

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The Best Backup Idea Cross-Training Your
Employees
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Business goes off-track when a key employee quits
or takes a long vacation.

• Most businesses operate with leaner teams, making
  each employee a vital part of the mix.
• In such a case, when one employee is unavailable,
  theres no one else who could take over his
  responsibilities.

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What results? Lean productivity. Really bad for
business, huh!
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Theres always a solution. If managers
cross-trained employees so theres always at
least one employee who could take over the
responsibilities of another, it will be the best
backup for the business.
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Priorities shift quickly in a constantly-changing
business environment. It is here that
cross-training will prove to be absolutely
useful.
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Really Helpful? Is It?
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Duh! Cross-training has immense benefits for
corporations, especially those with smaller teams
and limited workforce.

• It helps build stronger teams because employees
  get to know the challenges faced by their
  colleagues in their respective job roles.

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This motivates them to be supportive of one
another, increasing work efficiency.
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As Jerry Osteryoung, professor of
Entrepreneurship and Finance, Jim Moran Institute
for Global Entrepreneurship, points out,

• Benefits of cross-training include corporate
  readiness when there is a need to fill the shoes
  of an employee providing more variety in
  employees work, which typically results in
  happier and more productive workers and the
  interaction of employees, which builds a sense of
  teamwork within and between departments as each
  employee becomes more aware of what other
  employees and departments do.

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Despite its utility, cross-training is a magic
leadership tool that most managers and
supervisors, unfortunately, tend to overlook or
underestimate.
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In fact, what many fail to realise is that
cross-training outweighs the results of other
methods aimed at enhancing team performance.
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Okay, Got It. So, How Do I Get It Done?
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As a manager or an HR professional, thats
exactly what you could be thinking. Developing a
cross-training program for an enterprise isnt
that difficult if you get certain nuances right.

• A cross-training program cannot be designed and
  implemented at short notice, that too during a
  period of crisis.

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Managers need to be ready beforehand and
implement the program after careful planning.
Before initiating such a program, there are a few
decisions that the organization needs to take.
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For instance, it will have to decide who is
eligible for training, whether the training is to
be restricted to specific job roles, whether it
will be voluntary or mandatory, the protocols
that need to be set in place for the
implementation of the program, etc.
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Step-Wise Please!
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• The first action that is mission critical to the
  implementation of a cross-training program is the
  drawing up of a list of tasks and functions that
  are vital for the business daily operations.
• These tasks need to be prioritized so that
  essential tasks can be included in the training
  program.

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Once the tasks are decided and prioritized, it
will be possible to match the tasks which require
cross-training coverage with the employees who
are to be trained.
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• Instead of simply training one employee to handle
  anothers task, it is better to train a number of
  employees for various components of a task so
  they can pitch in together and responsibilities
  are shared.

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Throughout this process, managers need to be
ready for some resistance and some employees may
give a less enthusiastic response, especially
employees who feel that the whole process
involves training their replacements.

• In fact, employees shouldnt be made to feel that
  the company is developing their replacements, but
  rather they should be made to feel that their
  jobs are highly critical and therefore there is a
  need for backup in their absence.

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Taking regular feedback from team members on all
aspects of the cross-training program will be of
immense benefit.
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Centre for Innovation and EntrepreneurshipC-4,
IIT-H Foundation, Gachibowli, Hyderabad961840275
1, 9000600247

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