Understudy

An understudy is a person who is in training to suppose at a future time, the complete responsibility of the position presently held by his superior. This technique supplies the organisation a person with as much competence as the superior to fill up his post which can fall vacant because of retirement, promotion or transfer. Usually an understudy is selected by the head of a specific department. Then the head will teach him what his full job involves. The superior involves him in decision- taking by discussing the daily operating difficulty as well.

Understudy assignments help the greater to lighten his workload by delegating some of portion of his work to a designated person. In turn, the understudy gets chance to learn the superior's job and get prepared for challenging roles at afterward date. This is beneficial from the organisation's point of view also as it will not be at the receiving end while suddenly an executive leaves his job. On the negative surface, the designation of a person like an understudy can spark off jealousy & rivalry amongst competing subordinates. Since the understudy has been picked up specially, others who are left out in the race can get a feeling that competition for promotions is over. It would affect the inspiration level of both the one who is designated (who tends to breathe simple, take the assignment for granted & even relax for a while) and the other personnel (who tend to carry the bitter feelings for a long, long time). The entire exercise would be beneficial only while trainees obtain a real opportunity to deal with challenging or interesting assignments (rather than performing paper shuffling chores).