Cross-Utilization Of A Two-Skilled Workforce

Cross-utilization of the labour force is widely recognized as a method for improving productivity in service organizations. This paper investigates the effect of cross-utilization on workforce staff size, at the aggregate level for a two-skilled labour force. Workers are assumed to have 100 per cent productivity in their primary skill, and cross-training policies ranging from zero to 100 per cent productivity in the secondary skill were investigated across a variety of labour demand conditions. The results suggest that small degrees of cross-utilization can provide significant workforce savings and that there tend to be diminishing returns beyond 50 per cent productivity in the secondary skill.