Multiskilling, presented as enrichment and measured as intensification

Horizontal enlargement adds tasks at the same level, which increases variety without altering autonomy. Vertical enrichment adds design or control tasks, which alters decision latitude.

That distinction, formulated by Frederick Herzberg in the late 1960s and then incorporated into the job characteristics model of Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham, is decisive: the two forms are often designated by the same word and do not have the same measured effects.

European surveys measure task variety and autonomy separately. They find that combining high variety with high autonomy is associated with favourable indicators.

Combining high variety with low autonomy, that is many prescribed tasks, is associated with the least favourable indicators, more so than a repetitive task with autonomy.

That result is consistent with Robert Karasek's model, in which decision latitude conditions how a demand is experienced. These are, however, cross-sectional associations, which do not say whether multiskilling produces those indicators or whether it is concentrated in posts that are already difficult.

Job rotation spread with Japanese production methods from the 1980s, associated with reducing stocks and making teams responsible for quality. The book by James Womack, Daniel Jones and Daniel Roos, published in 1990, popularised these methods under the name of lean production.

Work on those systems documents both a real broadening of skills and an intensification of work, two effects that coexist and that evaluations rarely separate. Volvo's Swedish plants at Kalmar and Uddevalla had explored another path, based on autonomous teams assembling large sub-assemblies.

Multiskilling reduces the need for replacement and alters the structure of headcount. It is in that sense an instrument of internal flexibility, an alternative to adjusting through employment, which can also protect headcount when activity fluctuates. The two readings, cutting posts and preserving jobs, rest on the same mechanism.

That dimension is present in company bargaining and absent from most discussions focused on skills development.

Work on fairness finds that broadening tasks without a pay or status counterpart is associated with unfavourable evaluations, including where the content of the work is judged more interesting. The comparison between what one contributes and what one receives, described by John Stacy Adams in 1963, provides the framework.

That result links multiskilling to job classification, which determines recognition of acquired skills and is the object of separate sector bargaining.