Reasons for the rise of multi-team membership
An article on the TrainingZone website states that in Western countries multi-team membership is quite common, especially in companies that consist of workers who are not too specialised technically. One reason for this trend currently being on the rise is a shortage of workers: companies often have to rely on existing staff to cover new agendas, so they train them and divide their work to cover more areas.
Benefits of multi-team membership
- New incentives. If a member of a team is an "outsider" who participates in other projects within the company, this person can then see things in a broader context, bringing new innovative ideas and thoughts to the team.
- Proceeding according to the priorities of the company. If the employee's attention is divided among multiple teams and projects, they do not consider only the priorities and aims of one individual group, but also the more general priorities of the company as a whole. This is something the company can profit from.
- Understanding between teams. Aversion among teams is common. Employees with multi-team membership can interconnect these different groups and help bury the hatchet.
Disadvantages of multi-team membership
- Unclear division of work. Obviously there must a rule for how much time the employee spends on individual teams and projects. But only rarely do plans correspond to real needs: the truth is often that too much time is spent on a project that does not actually require it, and vice versa.
- Lack of expertise. Spending only limited time on projects means having only partial insight into the whole issue. This is why multi-team membership is not recommended in companies where maximum detailed expertise of employees is needed.
- Pressure on the employee. Distribution of work among multiple teams goes hand in hand with stress on the given employee. The teams will always feel it is they to whom the employee pays too little attention, while the employee themselves might feel under pressure as a result. The overall stress caused by this situation could then have a negative impact on the given employee's performance.
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