4 CROSS-UTILIZATION OF RESOURCES AMONG THE VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS

OPPORTUNITIES

Considering the competition observed in the industry, employees can be a competitive advantage if they
are trained to handle multiple functions. It is a win-win for the firm and employees. It helps in making
employees more productive, loyal and improvement in performance. It improves the work atmosphere
and impacts the bottom line positively.

Cross-utilization increases the utilization during the peak demand. It would also be easy and effective to
pool-in the internal resources over hiring the external employees.

Cost Savings:

Money spent on recruiting would be relatively less as eligible and capable people would available in the
firm itself. Cross-utilization can save time and money spent on hiring temporary employees to handle
peak demand and absenteeism.

Employee Motivation:

Employees would be more motivated to work as it involves relatively more learnings and experiences.
This also generally be considered as a non-monetary recognition by employees. Cross-utilization also
helps employees in acquiring new skills which provides the holistic view of the company and processes. It
further enhances the decision making as employees would be aware of the constraints of other
departments upfront. It would also help in employees professional development when they go up the
ladder in the hierarchy.

CHALLENGES

The cross-functional training would be required to efficiently use the work force, it would increase the
cost for the company. Increase in cost can also be attributed to the expected hike in salary by workforce
to compensate for the additional skills. The efficient use of employees comes with a cost of slow learning
in a core field of the employee. Employees would take more time to become experts in a given field.

Sometimes, employees would be resisting to cross-training under the perception that their jobs would be
eliminated later on. Few might not be happy with the criteria or lack of it in choosing the employees for
cross-training.

RESOLUTION

Cross-utilization can be perceived as a scheme to eliminate the workforce. Hence, rational behind it
should be communicated well as a benefit for the employee. The firm should also plan how many people
to train for the additional skills and what all skills to be taught to increase the return on investment. It
should setup a clear criteria or taskforce comprised of both employees and management to implement
smoothly and efficiently.