How Training “Swiss Army Knife” Employees Can Benefit Your Bottom Line
By: Mackenzie Caudill
Tags: Management, Manufacturing, Hiring, Human Resources, Business

How Training “Swiss Army Knife” Employees Can Benefit Your Bottom Line

COVID has caused many companies to change the way they do business, both internally and externally.

Many teams have adopted new ways of working. One concept that business owners are revisiting — as they rightly should — is the concept of the “swiss army knife” employee.

Photo by Michael Heng on Unsplash

What is a “Swiss Army Knife” Employee?

The idea of the “swiss army knife” employee isn’t new. But, it does have a renewed sense of relevance for many companies in light of the pandemic.

Specialists are great. Employees who specialize in multiple things are even better. The broader an employee’s skill set, the more valuable they are. A “swiss army knife” employee describes someone who is trained and able to operate in more than one role, based on the company’s needs and capacity.

Evaluating The Leadership Environment

Just like plants grow well in fertile soil, “swiss army knife” employees are often a product of their environment. Leadership teams of organizations with multi-specialist employees tend to:

Demonstrate respect and trust of their employees — both collectively and individually.

Show that they value the ideas of team members.

Provide training for their teams and encourage them to continually grow their skills.

Cultivate employees who are proud to work for their company, saying “we” when referring to the business rather than “they”.

Believe in the importance of and mine the wisdom of front-line workers, knowing that they have the most direct contact with the processes that make the company successful.

Identifying and Training “Swiss Army Knife” Employees

Before training a swiss army knife employee, it’s important to identify which team members would be the best candidates. Look for people who:

Are always ready, willing, and able to help others.

Say, “Can do!” instead of “That’s not my job.”

Do their best to help take care of a problem when asked — even if it isn’t in their direct work area.

Take advantage of learning opportunities.

Actively seek out greater responsibility.

Employees can only embrace new roles if they possess certain points of knowledge. And, no, it’s not just their skillset. To function as a successful “swiss army knife” employee, a person needs to know:

That his or her employment status is secure.

That the fact that he or she is being trained or retrained is not due to poor performance in their initial role — quite the opposite.

Who they report to and take direction from.

How they will be evaluated in their role(s) and how management defines success.

How to determine which role / tasks take priority.

Managing “Swiss Army Knife” Employees

Managing “swiss army knife” employees is also a tough task that requires a greater level of clarity and communication between team members. For example, managers will need to know:

Which of their employees are “swiss army knife” employees.

How much of an employee’s bandwidth they will have, so they can plan projects and timelines accordingly.

Who / what determines if an employee is in one role or another on any given day. Is it based on a set schedule or an as-needed request from another manager?

How they should evaluate that employee’s performance on their team.

Managers must have clear expectations set and open lines of communication established with both their team members and other managers involved. Without these, managers may give employees too much responsibility or not enough. Either way, this can lead to frustration and, potentially, burnout for the employee.

Building “Swiss Army Knife” Teams

We’ve been discussing this at a “micro” level — looking at how the needs of individual “swiss army knife” employees should be met and managed.

However, COVID has illuminated the need for another reality: “swiss army knife” teams. Really, a team is a collection of employees, so many of the aforementioned concepts still apply.

The role and reassignment of a swiss army knife team is much more likely to come from the C-Suite level. The decision about how to allocate a “swiss army knife” team is about tackling operational inefficiencies that are or could lead to customer dissatisfaction.

For example, as a result of the COVID crisis, a large number of e-commerce organizations were flooded with an overwhelming amount of orders. This led to long lead times, which caused customers to become frustrated with waiting and, as a result, some chose to cancel their orders.

But, what if the company was able to monitor all processes and identify the bottleneck? Perhaps all orders were assembled; however, the packaging department just couldn’t keep up?

With a “swiss army knife” team, the company could reassign assemblers to assist with packaging until the bottleneck cleared. Or, the issue might one day be vice versa — a new influx of orders could cause the assembly team to get backed up, while the packaging team waits idly by. In this instance, the packaging team could be temporarily re-assigned to assist with assembly.

Realizing the Return-on-Investment

Having multi-specialist employees and teams sounds like a great idea — so what holds companies back?

Initial investment — either of time or resources. There is always training required which takes employees away from their current roles and teaches them new skills. Upfront, this can feel detrimental to current productivity levels and, perhaps, cash flows.

The reality is that taking the time to train your employees now will yield a significant return on investment later.

Here’s why: “Swiss army knife” employees comprise “swiss army knife” teams. “Swiss army knife” teams can go where the need is greatest. The need is greatest where there is the highest potential for customer cancellation or dissatisfaction. Therefore, by having “swiss army knife” teams to allocate, the chance of customer cancellation and potential dissatisfaction decreases. Customers will be more likely to (purchase or) repurchase. More sales. Fewer refunds. More loyalty. Higher CLV. Higher ROI.

About What’s Next Labs: What’s Next Labs is a publication of INTO, an agency that empowers businesses to transform their aspirational goals into actual growth. Learn more about INTO at into.agency.