EMPLOYEE CROSS-TRAINING: How small governments can improve efficiency and reduce their risk.

• Date: 01 October 2020
• Author: Mack, Mark

Finance offices in small governments face a unique challenge that isn't shared by many of their peers in midsized and large governments: limited personnel. Although most finance departments--large and small--wouldn't mind having an extra set of hands, few manage to cover as many functional areas with as few people as small governments do. And having a limited number of employees--sometimes only two or three--can mean that only one person in the entire organization knows how to complete a given task. So, what happens if that person becomes ill or wants to take a vacation? Often it means bringing a laptop to the beach to make sure payroll is run properly or coming back early from an illness. But what if there were another option that didn't involve hiring another person or adding FTEs?

Employee-cross training can provide a solution. Several small jurisdictions have managed to reduce the risk that comes from having only a single person in the organization capable of completing critical tasks by creating redundancies via cross-training, done informally in organizations of all types and sizes. Training employees to complete a task outside of their job descriptions may sound like simply adding extra work, but it's typically done to cover for emergencies and doesn't include the planning or forethought found in a formalized cross-training program.

The following case studies explore how two small governments used employee cross-training to strengthen overall organizational capacity, motivate their employees, and reduce risk.

Vallejo Flood and Wastewater District

POPULATION: 115,000

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES:

Total 90

Finance 7

Vallejo Flood and Wastewater District

Though the Vallejo Flood and Wastewater District does not have a formal cross-training program, Finance Supervisor Chas Fadrigo has spent her time at the organization making sure that every employee in the Finance Department is cross-trained. When she was hired in her position, she came to find that employees were very task-focused: they focused on the "how" but not the "why" of their jobs. This created a disconnect among individual tasks and the mission of the organization as a whole. By holding weekly meetings with each employee, Fadrigo was able to have in-depth conversations about job descriptions, expectations, and desires.

As Fadrigo continued to learn more about her employees, their skills, and their responsibilities, she came to realize that there were holes in their knowledge and...