As per the employment structure, there are two major collar jobs that is white-collar jobs and blue-collar jobs. White-collar jobs refer to employees who do desk jobs and blue-collar refers to employees who do field jobs.
Nowadays, the employment structure is changing. The market trends are constantly changing and have become too demanding, to keep up with this pace, a new structure called the mixed collar job has come into place. Mixed collar refers to those sets of employees who are capable to do both desk and field jobs.
The best use of mixed collar employees come in certain fields like marketing. Because marketing as we know involves a lot of desk and field jobs. In such scenarios hiring mixed collar, employees proves more beneficial.
The best or the biggest advantage of a mixed collar employee is that there is no specific job role defined. This is what is needed in marketing too. As per the need, the employee needs to react. They will be required to do desk jobs like telecalling, data entry, email marketing, publishing, etc. Also when there is a marketing event they will be required to do field jobs like promoting, distributing samples, meeting new clients, presentations, etc. Thus mixed collar employees should be in a position to handle both and hence they are best suited in marketing fields.
The best way to make a mixed collar relationship work is to ensure in which field you are employing them. For example, if you are employing a mixed collar employee in an IT software field, it won’t be as beneficial as appointing in the HR or Sales field. The reason being in an IT software field it’s a full-time desk job or a white collared job. Same way if you’re appointing a mixed collar employee for a sales job he will be on the field doing sales activities and also doing white collared jobs like documentation, presentation, data entry, data analysis, etc. Hence to make a mixed collar work for you, ensure the position you are employing for needs a mixed collar employee.
Secondly, many times a mixed collar employee is confused as to what is expected out of him. So ensure even though it’s mixed collared, he knows what’s his roles are what he is expected to do. Thirdly today many mixed collar employees are technologically trained, so ensure to hire such employees wherein you can use their technological knowledge. This way they will also feel they are needed and it’s the best way to make things work. Fourthly ensure you’re not taking your mixed collar employee for granted. Often because there are no well-defined job roles, a mixed collar employee might be loaded with all aspects of the job. Ensure you are not overburdening him with all tasks. Fifth remember to compensate him well, as he is doing what two employees are doing for you. Keeping your mixed collar employee motivated is the best way to maintain an effective relationship.
As we can see above, with changing times, mixed collared employment is picking up and it is what companies to prefer. And why not when you can collaborate two job roles in one, it only proves beneficial and economical.
Deepa's blog 