t under a number of different names, including autonomous work teams, quality circles, or quality-of-work-life teams.
One of the benefits of multiskilling is reduced management hierarchy because the management function becomes an integral part of the business process. In the traditional organization, decisions are made solely at the management level, typically after extensive rounds of meetings. With multiskilling, workers are empowered to employ their own critical thinking skills: "As management invests teams with the responsibility of completing an entire process, it must also give them the authority to make the decisions needed to get it done" (Hammer and Champy, 1993, p. 70). The less employees have to rely on management for decisonmaking, the flatter the organizational structure.
Multiskilled workers are even becoming involved in the strategic planning function of business, once the exclusive domain of executive management. Strategic planning teams in many American companies now include line managers, staff managers, and even junior staff
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