Time management - Essay Example

Time Management Time Management One of the factors that help businesses in attaining success is time management. Time management may affect employee performance as well as profitability of an organisation. Various factors impact the productivity levels of employees. These factors include demotivation, work overload and distraction caused by non-routine tasks that employees may have to carry out. Success of a business is highly dependent on profitability that may be caused by enhanced productivity.

However, certain businesses may fail to increase their profitability as a consequence of decreased employee productivity. In many organisations, time management has been identified as the cause of poor employee productivity. This essay aims at determining whether implementing time management strategies and tools can assist in enhancing employee’s productivity and performance. Many people consider time management to be crucial for the attainment of personal and organisational success. Individuals, who fail to implement time management strategies, are likely to attain a balance in their professional and personal commitments.

Strategies for time management that help employees in managing their time may result in lower work stress and increased productivity. Time management could be a key to success for those employees who have several responsibilities. Time management strategies can help all employees in ensuring that they have planned a proper schedule which can assist them in attaining organisational objectives. Project managers have to focus on time management because they have to meet the deadlines associated with various projects they are working on.

Time is a limited resource and it is significant to use time in the best possible manner. Time does not stop for anyone and time is an element that can easily be wasted. Drucker stated that time is one of the resources that all human resources need to manage properly. He further added that if an individual wants to attain distance education along with work, the individual needs to properly manage his/her time. There are some key aspects associated with implementing effective time management strategies.

These aspects include planning, setting deadlines, delegation of responsibilities, and spending the right amount of time on the right activity. The problem with time is that once it passes out, it cannot be regained. In certain cultures time is perceived as money and lack of time management leads to career collapse and organisational failure. In order to increase the productivity of organisation, employees have to ensure that they are spending the right time on the right task by using effective strategies of time management.

I managers want to achieve goals and objectives of their organisation, managers should consider time as a limited resource and ensure that all employees utilise their time effectively. Furthermore, if managers want to attain increased productivity and performance, they will need to use all the available tools as well as skills required for managing time. Griffin suggests that one of the time management techniques that managers can use is delegation of tasks to employees (Griffin et al, 2014).

Delegation refers to tasks as well as responsibilities passed onto those employees who can carry out those tasks in a much efficient and effective manner. This technique can be used in conjunction with breaking tasks into smaller subtasks and allocating these tasks to employees who have the required knowledge, skills and abilities to carry out these tasks in a timely manner. Furthermore, managers can determine the length of time that will be used in completing a task and then dividing lengthier tasks is highly advisable.

This process of dividing and delegating tasks can help in motivating employees and attainment of the completion of tasks in a timely manner. A manager who heads many departments in an organisation can use delegation to improve the speed at which different tasks are completed and to reduce multitasking. Delegation leads to sharing of work and completion of tasks in a shorter period. Delegation allows managers to focus on other tasks and further increase organization’s productivity. Another useful time management strategy is tackling a problem ahead of time.

This strategy helps in decreasing procrastination which negatively impacts employees and their productivity. Human resource departments need to inform employees regarding the negatives of procrastination. They can educate employees regarding efforts that can be made to solve different problems in less time. For example, human resource department can encourage employees to set priorities. Stephen stated that, people must schedule their priorities, not prioritise their schedules (Covey, 2004). Employees who rank their responsibilities based on priorities are able to enhance their performance by managing their time and having clear goals to achieve.

Employees perform best when they work on tasks that they are interested in and they perform less when they are awarded tasks that do not match their interests. Certain employees are more interested in working on urgent tasks rather than tasks that need to be completed at a later time period. Implementing time management strategies may help employees plan clear goals and objectives. Managers should ensure that time management focuses on changing the performance of employees and help them in elevating their productivity levels in limited time period.

When employees have clear goals to achieve, they can strike a balance between their work and social life. Organizations have realized that time management is an essential component for improving the performance and productivity of employees and organization. Therefore, members of the human resource management department need to provide training to employees in the area of time management. This will help employees develop as well as improve time management skills. Human resource management department needs to focus on providing practical training to employees for the development of time management skills.

Furthermore, employees can attain time management skills by practising planning and prioritizing of tasks. Due to this, training for time management should focus on implementation of appropriate changes to routine activities of employees. Time management training should involve the use of time management tools such as templates for planning and prioritizing work. It is even recommended to develop guidelines to guide employees through the required time management process. Employees need to understand the advantages of recommended time management strategies.

This will help employees evaluate their capabilities and this will enable them to plan their working and time in a much efficient and effective manner. The implementation of these strategies needs to be done in a proper manner because there are consequences associated with failure to proper implementation of these strategies. Time management tools and strategies can help employees remain focused on their tasks and this will result in higher productivity. Furthermore, time management methods can help employees avoid work overload stress and these strategies will prevent employees from rushing from task to task.

Ineffective delegation also has a major impact on proper time management. Poor delegation leads to frustrated employees and has a negative effect on their performance and this can result in reduced employee productivity. Due to this, opportunities of improvement may be missed and organization’s profitability may be hampered. Goetsch mentioned, poorly scheduled priorities can lead employees to work on the wrong task at the wrong time (Goetsch, 2015). Over prioritisation of activities can result in overlooking other activities that are crucial for business development.

Setting priorities in the right manner can help minimise wasting time during work. Therefore, strategies that aim at prioritising and clarifying tasks for employees such as defining of schedules and deadlines should be implemented. When implementing time management strategies, there should be clear lines of authority for employees. If employees are confused regarding some tasks or do not have enough resources for making decisions, they may end up wasting time while waiting for their managers assistance.

Unclear authority and responsibility may lead employees to waste time. This is because employees may not have the knowledge, skills and ability to decide what needs to be done and in which manner. Due to unclear authority and responsibility, employees may make assumptions regarding the action that they need to take and this might impact their performance in a negative manner. To avoid this, it may be appropriate for managers to set a time to meet their employees in order to make decisions in a group form.

In conclusion, implementing time management strategies can be a good opportunity for an organisation to enhance organisational productivity and employees’ performance. Therefore, managers in organisations have the responsibility for implementing these strategies and training their employees to help them develop time management skills. This could be done by setting principles, training skills and practicing as well as using tools and systems to work together to assist employees in enhancing their quality of work.

To avoid wasting time in researching solutions and finding the right decision without authority, it is recommended that employees meet with their managers regularly to obtain clear direction. However, the strategies can fail if they are not implemented properly. Furthermore, human resource departments should provide employees with training sessions regarding time management and train them well to enhance organization’s productivity. References Covey, S. R. (2004). The 7 habits of highly effective people: restoring the character ethic.

New York, Free Press. Goetsch, D. L. (2015). Project management for engineering and technology. Griffin, R. W., & Van Fleet, D. D. (2014). Management skills: assessment and development.