AN ability to do three things at once is handy in today's fast-paced business world, but this should not extend to multiplying your own skills, employers will hear in York next month.

Jan Eskildsen, managing director of York-based document services business DocQwise, will advise hundreds of delegates at a ground-breaking EmployABILITY conference that expanding enterprises recruiting new staff need a variety of new expertise rather than duplicating those of the management.

"The last thing that good business managers want to do is employ clones of themselves," he will argue.

Danish-born Jan, who took over the former British Rail in-house printing facility four years ago and is turning it into a national document services company, will share his experiences of the change in management techniques necessary for growing small businesses to conference delegates at the Ask Restaurant and Assembly Rooms on October 17.

Other speakers at the event which campaigns for employers to recruit the needed-skills of people aged 50-plus will include the minister of state for pensions, Ian McCartney, a Cabinet representative and the senior age legislation implementor.

Jan is overseeing the conversion of DocQwise into a sophisticated concept-to-completion document management and production company, offering a variety of document and digital print related services. These range from print-on-demand from electronic or hard copy files, conversion of hard copy files to CD-Rom or web-based document management techniques. It now serves diverse clients including Arriva, Corus, GNER, JARVIS, Railtrack, KPMG, International Fertiliser Society, Learndirect and The Department of Work and Pensions.

The conference, organised by Nigel Pendleton, the York and North Yorkshire Jobcentre Plus workforce development manager, and jointly backed by York and North Yorkshire Learning and Skills Council, is expected to attract hundreds of delegates and will focus on a wide range of issues including recruitment, retention, IT and meeting the needs of the district's economy.

Jan, who achieved Investor In People accreditation with only 22 DocQwise staff, said: "One of the conference themes will be, that in growing a business, management should identify the range of skills they require and recruit on that basis.

"Traditionally the temptation is for managements to recruit clones of themselves, but this does not move a business forward. They need to be bold and develop and recruit staff with different talents and work approaches which need to be harnessed to the corporate goal. This is essential to help businesses develop.

"However, the change from a production-focused to a service-orientated approach to work is not a simple transformation as DocQwise is still learning. Managers need to develop confidence in creating a 'trial and error' partnership with their staff and seeing that everyone is comfortable."

Nigel Pendleton said: "The event is about bringing together the people that count with the people who can make a difference to the mutual benefit of the individuals, businesses and the local economy."

Updated: 09:50 Tuesday, September 24, 2002