This the the fourth of five articles on the subject of schedule predictability. This article will address one additional cause: lack of skill balance or cross training. This is often a hidden source of schedule unpredictability.

If you are moving employees from shift-to-shift and day-to-day because you need their specific skills, you probably don't have enough cross training or skill balance (the right amount of skills on each shift). Lack of cross training can be a vicious cycle. If employees see a highly-skilled employee work a schedule worse than their own, they may avoid learning the new skill so they are not forced onto that schedule.

The best solution is to train more employees on the same schedule or crew, and provide an incentive to learn new skills. This is much less expensive than hiring more staff with the special skills.