HR productivity has been put on the spotlight due to the recent pandemic, hence the need for effective time management that can significantly improve the output even with remote workers. The ability for HR to set, create and edit shifts and schedules easily for employees while learning to navigate the new normal to achieve the company goals has become an integral part for every forward-looking business. Additionally, to set up employees for success, instilling the right time management skills and tools can be the accelerator needed to move to the next stage of the evolution of a business and the HR function.
What is effective time management?
Time management is the skill and ability to categorize and complete job tasks within the allocated time. In order to succeed, employees must develop a schedule and priority list that helps them in completing their tasks. Employee productivity differs from one person to the other and for effective time management, an employee must be able to identify what works for them and run with it. In order to order to manage the workload, employees can come up with a priority list that allows them to work on the most complex tasks when they are most productive and those tasks that require less cognitive load can be done when they are not as productive. For instance, some employees may be more effective in the morning in tackling a certain issue, with the rate of productivity fading as the day wears off, hence it is imperative for HR to allocate such tasks during the morning to increase efficiency in doing the said task and ultimately their productivity.
How effective time management affects productivity
Employers and employees can both benefit from effective time management. The ability to create, edit and share shift schedules with employees can bring order and alignment, ensuring goal attainment. Moreover, it can ensure that the most essential of tasks are completed in time. Other ways effective time management can affect productivity include:
Healthy work-life balance
Employees can be able to easily schedule out their days from the shifts shared. This can bring about a sense of control for the employee. As a result, an employee can better plan for their days to tackle both professional and personal obligations. According to a study from Stanford, productivity decreases after a certain threshold in the number of hours worked has been reached. As such, it is important to put emphasis on effective time management in order to get optimum productivity.
Effective setting and achievement
Effective time management entails employees setting up strategies on the priority areas to be tackled. The set goals can be set with the time required to finish the task as the variable or the importance of the task. Clear goals and roadmaps on how a certain task can be executed can lead to a higher productivity and attainment of the set goals.
Reduced psychological pressure
When employees can be able to plan for tasks assigned to them beforehand, they can be more confident in completion of the task. Effective time management gives employees the ability to set action plan in accomplishing a task that can have a specific set deadline. This can greatly reduce their anxiety and ability to complete a task. Because they can plan their time well, they have less stress at work which leads to increased productivity reflected in tasks completed within set deadlines.
Ways to effectively manage your time
For employees that want to accomplish more from their time, an effective time management strategy can leave them satisfied and with time for an extra assignment. Because there are those facing time management challenges, learning and practicing effective time management skills can have significant impact to their professional and personal life. You can consider the following the following for your business and the employees:
Leverage technology
With so many activities clogging your calendar, it can be time consuming to sort out the mess. You can allocate activities that directly influence your core business your most productive time. Use of a digital calendar and an integrated time and attendance software with shift scheduling can help you. Scheduling will allow you to allocate activities and tasks to your employees effectively without consuming your time, turning on SMS notifications for schedule changes ensures your employees are informed when any changes to their work schedules has been made. Use of technology can instill discipline in your employees and improving the HR productivity of your business.
Set priority lists
Daily and weekly goals can be used in moving the business forward. The hindrance that can be faced in execution of the goals can be the feeling of employees being overwhelmed by unrealistic goals within the set timeline. Coming up with priority list for your business goals and the time to accomplish them will greatly improve your time management. Also, clearly communicating the goals and timelines to employees works to increase chances of success.
Eliminate non-essential tasks
Non-essential tasks in the workplace can include personal phone calls and email alerts, social media or watching YouTube videos. Eliminating these activities and other distractions that can take up considerable amount of time, will increase the productivity of workers leading to better time management practices. Handling these distractions away from productive hours will give an employee extra boost in their time management.
Unlocking HR productivity with tech
Effective time management has become critical with increased macro forces influencing the performance of a business. As such, cultivating a time conscious workplace can go a long way in alleviating effects of poor time management such as time wastage, poor quality work and lack of completion of projects. With that in mind, use of software tools to increase HR productivity such as time and attendance tracking system, can provide insights on time usage during work hours.
