Hotelier Middle East investigates the pros and cons of cross-training your workforce.

Company restructuring as a result of the economic downturn has placed renewed emphasis on the value of cross-training and multi-skilling staff, according to HR directors at Hotelier Middle East's industry roundtable.

According to Le Méridien and The Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina Complex director of human resources Hein Dames, focusing on multi-skilling and cross-utilisation of staff is one way of dealing with reduced head count or promotion freezes.

There is general agreement on this issue, however, Dames also makes the claim that the end result of cross-training is that "instead of having three people doing three different jobs, you can have one person doing three different jobs".

In theory this sounds great, but is it really viable? Surely there is a risk that while the three jobs might be done, they will only be performed to a mediocre level? And while multi-skilling is intended to empower staff, is there not a danger of overloading employees with responsibilities and tasks outside of their skill set, ultimately reducing their motivation and productivity?

Developing a cross-training programme requires careful consideration. Hotelier Middle East challenged industry experts to consider the cross-training trend in order to uncover its pros and cons and establish the optimum way to approach it.

Utilising budgets

Cross-training is without a doubt a concept that has helped hotels and their staff operate efficiently in recent times of turmoil. Redundancies or recruitment freezes have led to a reduction in workforce for many properties and multi-skilling the remaining staff not only assists managers to get the job done, but also helps those employees feel as if their skills are needed, helping to shake any lingering redundancy fear.

From the HR director's point of view, the challenge during the downturn is to spend often reduced training budgets more effectively.

"The challenge for us from a learning and development perspective is that training budgets are being scrutinised more than in the past; a lot of them are driven by a percentage of revenue so with revenues down in the current environment of course training budgets are down," says Dames.

"The challenge for us is to make sure the money we do have for learning and development is spent in the right manner. [Initially] we focused a lot on skills training and culture training and we're now going out of that stage onto a stronger focus on mentoring and development programmes, and that something's that's changed over the last few years. In the past, those developmental opportunities were less important but the workforce now is saying ‘I want to advance in my career' and culture and service training isn't what they require or want to motivate them," he says.

Dames says hotels in the Middle East are fortunate to be able to add cross-utilisation and multi-skilling programmes to their training offer.

"In this environment you're in the fortunate position where you can cross-train. In a lot of countries in the world you're legally not allowed to have one person performing different roles, there is certain legislation and trade unions that prevent it. For example, the room maid will not pick up a tray in the passageway because it's the room service waiter's job. But in this environment we can make use of multi-skilling".

Careful consideration should be given to the types of employee engaged on this sort of training.

Renaissance Dubai Hotel housekeeping manager Suvarna Bahadarpurkar recommends that strong performers in the housekeeping department be targeted.

"Housekeeping is one of the largest departments in terms of staff count and areas or scope of work in the hotel. The cleanliness and maintenance of the aesthetic value of each and every corner in the hotel, except for the kitchen areas, is the key responsibility of the housekeeping department. As a result, housekeeping associates know the hotel inside out," explains Bahadarpurkar.

"As the major business in the hotel is rooms, sometimes the occupancy variations give the associates in housekeeping an opportunity to work as a task force or do a cross-training to enhance their knowledge, which supports the associate to develop in his career and boost his moral, which in turn helps the company to retain the trained staff," she continues.

"Take care of the associates and the associates will take care of the guest and the business," she says.

Cross-train to retain

Bahadarpurkar is right: as well as helping hotel business on a practical level in terms of ‘getting the job done', cross-training is also useful in assisting staff retention.

Emaar Hospitality Group Recruitment manager Aseem Kapoor says this is particularly the case in newly-opened properties that need help in retaining staff.

"The key for retention in the hospitality industry is getting the basics right. That works 100%. Basic things like food, accommodation, travel, transportation, ease of living, they're the basics you first need to get right," says Kapoor.

"Then the next step is career development opportunities, because if a person sees that they will stay with the organisation [to maximise] growth possibilities," he continues.

"The only challenge with newly-opened properties is you have a lot of people starting at the same time and they expect to move up at the same time, but you don't have that many opportunities to have 15 captains, so that's when multi-skilling and moving people across departments and transferring people internally helps. It's all about getting the basics right," affirms Kapoor.

Dusit Residence Dubai Marina Resident manager Aloysius Michael adds that it also helps with young staff eager to progress quickly.

"The younger generations coming into the business now have a shorter company lifespan; at one time people would be in a role for two years before they felt confident enough to move up, but that's been cut in half.

"We are constantly looking at the talent; you have to be in constant dialogue with staff, mentorship programmes are especially good, it's important to be able to be on the ground and feel the pulse of the workforce," says Michael.

Kempinski People Management Middle East & Africa regional director of Training Karen Thorburn is confident that cross-training works in these situations, but says that the newly-learned competencies must be properly recognised.

 "If someone's confident in their job, for example, if they're assessed as a room attendant and can perform all their duties, then they have the opportunity to cross-train.

"At the same time, when they're cross training they have the opportunity to be assessed and gain those competencies as well, so it's not only helping another department but helping them further develop their own career," says Thorburn. "Now because we've got the regional office we can actually help each other's properties out as well, so if one property is very quiet, we take some people from it and do what we call a task force, so people can go and help in other properties," she adds.

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Not everyone can juggle

The Address Dubai Mall general manager Olivier Heuchenne takes a more cautious approach to cross-training staff.

He agrees it helps with retention and promotions, but believes it is not a solution to an insufficient staff count.

"I love cross-training because it only retains your staff to stay with your hotel and have further progression. That's the only reason why I love cross-training."

Like Heuchenne, hotel marketing coach Neil Salerno sits on the other side of the fence to Mina Seyahi Complex's Dames, believing that "by adding new job duties and responsibilities to someone who already has a full-time job responsibility, we have made it more and more difficult for managers to achieve acceptable results in all areas".

Salerno says he has seen this happen in his field of internet marketing, an area hotels are increasingly required to add to their communications strategy but one that usually suffers without the required investment in resources.

"Few hotels can afford to employ someone to be solely responsible for the internet and electronic marketing. These areas are generally assigned to someone who already has another full-time job responsibility. In some hotels, this responsibility is given to someone with little or no experience in internet marketing at all," he says.

Salerno warns that although there are some people who perform multi-tasking very well, "many others have a tough time doing all their assigned tasks equally well".

"In many cases, this has created a whole new tendency to accept mediocre results in some areas," he says.

Heuchenne agrees that this can be a negative result of cross-training.

"I don't believe that one person can do two jobs - that's very challenging because they will only give 50% to one job and 50% to the other. You still need a specialist to do that particular job," says Heuchenne.

"It's one of those things - you cannot jeopardise the level of service by having one person do two jobs; it just isn't going to happen," he asserts. "You can't have someone who is going to do check-in and also bring the luggage up; it's too much, it doesn't make sense."

Heuchenne says that while it is sensible to have multi-skilled staff that could jump in and help "in case of an area that is in a pinch or has an extra volume", it should only ever be a temporary measure.

He is adamant that at no stage would it be workable for a member of staff to perform two distinct roles, such as making a bed in the morning and working in the hotel kitchens in the afternoon.

"No, we're probably never going to get there. I'm quite confident to say never," he says.

For Salerno, cross-training is also potentially damaging to a hotel's business because of its pressure on an employee's time.

"Along with the combining of job responsibilities came the compression of time which can be devoted to each assigned task," says Salerno. "Time is always a finite commodity; we cannot create more. The only thing we can do is to use time in the best way possible.

"During this age of multi-tasking, performing one task has to detract from the time devoted to doing something else; leading to prioritisation," says Salerno.

"Prioritising tasks is an absolute must; today, this can best be done by management leaders, who have an overall view of all the property goals. Left to their own devices, most middle management people will choose those tasks in which they are most familiar; not necessarily those which would provide the greater benefit to the hotel," says Salerno.

He makes a valid point. It becomes irrelevant how well a member of staff has been trained in another department if the person can't manage their time in order to perform both duties adequately. Is time-management training a part of your cross-training initiative? It certainly should be.

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