Multi Tasking abilities and References

With ongoing economic downturn, most organizations are re-looking at their employee strength and contemplating revising their individual employee’s role and responsibilities. Do you think that organizations should now look at having lesser number of employees on board and have only those well equipped with multi-tasking abilities?

In the current economic scenario, companies are getting less work from customers, so having less number of employees or having employees who can multi-task would help in optimization of resources. Versatile performers would invest less time in tasks and would also help in reducing the cost for the company. Multi-tasking would not only provide larger responsibility to an employee but also would keep his/her career progression secure. This is one of the prominent reasons for employee retention.

This is definitely true in our software industry particularly for onsite roles. To avoid flying out separate solutions architects, business analysts and project managers for each project, we need exceptional multi-skilled individuals who can understand the client’s requirements from multiple perspectives and organize the delivery as well. This will be best for the Indian industry and for our overseas clients.

Intelligent organizations have always put a premium on slim and trim structures, and making their team members donning multiple hats. Boom times cloud management thinking, at times, but as a rule, recession or boom time these are eternally acceptable principles. After all, maximizing employee performance is key to long term success.

In challenging times, organizations with optimized manpower will have a competitive edge over others. In the current economic scenario, manpower cost is one of the accounting head which is almost fixed, rest others like raw material, sales, power, logistics, forex etc., and varies from time to time. The companies which have multi-skilled manpower will out power others in all the aspects like sales value, volume, profit, new products, innovation and creativity, etc. Having a readymade strong talent pool, flexibility in manpower deployment keeping freshness in the jobs, etc are a few advantages of the same. Today, one of the major challenges before the HR function is meeting career aspirations of young professionals. One of the ways to meet career aspirations is to provide multiple opportunities to these professionals.

Before getting a potential employee aboard, a good/bad reference from a former employer can play a significant role towards helping the company make the right recruitment decision.

A good word from a former employer can either leverage the chances of an aspirant getting a job or tilt the scale on the other side. While most aspirants may believe that any sort of reference cannot really help him/her secure a job, experts of India Inc, believe otherwise. References are extremely valuable when shared by people who are either known to the potential employer or otherwise as they provide an objective reference with details.

Other than knowing the candidate, experts say that any kind of references helps the employer to get a different look at the candidates, especially if that comes from a former employer. Any sort of reference acts as a parallel assessment tool for an aspirant. It helps the organization to get an outlook as to how the individual was with his/her peers. A reference of any kind is like a personal endorsement of sorts. The right reference acts like a window to the characteristics of a potential employee. It also helps an employer to decide where a potential employee can fit in.

References if contain specific details help the employer to understand the potential employee better and also ensures that the role is sited to his/her profile. References also reveal potential areas of improvement and training needs if any.

There are often times when this can work against the potential employee’s favor. Many a times, the person providing the reference is not always correct. Also, if the person providing the reference has any sort of ill feeling towards the candidate, there are chances that he/she may sabotage the candidate’s reference. There are always possibilities of a bias towards the candidate which would hamper the authenticity of the reference. It helps the employer identify strengths and weaknesses of a potential employee. It helps the employer to define the kind of role he/she can take.

In today’s job scenario, an employer cannot risk having a bad hire on board. And reference is the sole solution to this menace.