Cross-training: should team members learn their colleagues' jobs?

When an absence or an unexpected event disrupts a team, cross-training quickly becomes a managerial response. The useful question is more precise: does learning part of a colleague's job improve continuity in collective work?

What the literature establishes

Michelle A. Marks, Mark J. Sabella, C. Shawn Burke and Stephen J. Zaccaro (2002, Journal of Applied Psychology) experimentally studied cross-training, which familiarises team members with their teammates' functions. Their findings support its value for role knowledge and coordination, with effects on team effectiveness in the tasks studied. The issue is therefore not simply adding an individual skill, but improving the alignment of interdependent contributions.

Understanding other roles is not always enough

Michelle A. Marks, Stephen J. Zaccaro and John E. Mathieu (2000, Journal of Applied Psychology) examined leader briefings and interaction training when teams must adapt to unfamiliar environments. Their study shows the value of preparing how members interact, rather than relying solely on their technical skills. Applied to cover arrangements, this mechanism suggests also practising handovers, requests for help and adjustments to responsibilities.

The premature conclusion

One might conclude that every member should be able to perform every role. These studies demonstrate neither the superiority of comprehensive cross-training nor the disappearance of the need for specialists. Understanding a colleague's constraints, being able to assist them and being authorised to replace them are three different levels that managers should keep distinct. (our executive and employee training programmes)

What the evidence does not guarantee

These experimental studies concern bounded tasks and environments; their applicability to an established professional team still needs to be tested. They do not establish the net benefit of widespread job rotation when learning takes time or errors carry regulatory responsibility. Nor does a list of designated substitutes prove that cover will work in practice.

A practical check in Genève

Within SHR's « Performance d'équipe » programme, one possible check is to select a critical handover and test it using a fictional case, before and after cross-role familiarisation. In Genève, the scenario could involve a client-file handover in private banking, mission preparation in an international organisation, order tracking in luxury watchmaking or a handover in commodity trading, without bypassing authorisations or the segregation of duties. Measure the proportion of critical steps completed correctly without consulting the usual role holder, using a checklist defined before the test, and record errors and completion time separately. Use two cases of comparable difficulty: an improvement provides useful local evidence rather than causal proof, but helps distinguish tested cover from a merely announced replacement. To go further: explore the Team Performance training in Geneva in the canton of Geneva, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.

In pictures: Team Performance in Geneva

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