Time management is an invaluable skill that your workers might lack. An essential part of workforce management is strategizing workplace time management policies to ensure productivity.
As a manager, it becomes your responsibility to ensure workers respect the time management policies of the company and give their best at work. But how will the workforce commit to time management when unaware of the principles?
This is why you must know time management techniques at the workplace to facilitate a work-life balance for the employees.
In this article, we will explore some tips to manage time at the workplace better.
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What is time management?
For most workers, there seems to be insufficient time to complete the tasks within a shift. However, unless you are overly planning the workload, employees should be able to accomplish their tasks without struggling with the deadlines.
Most probably, your employees are not aware of what time management is. You must explain it to them like we are defining it here.
Time management is simply organizing and planning the amount of time within a shift to be divided among specific activities based on priority. Workers must allot the right time to the suitable activity effectively to be most productive.
Productivity is a direct byproduct of efficient time management. Workers’ failure to manage their time can affect their productivity and the company’s bottom line.
So how do you help workers with time management?
Here are a few solutions.
Five tips for managing time at the workplace
1. See where you are spending your time
It is relatively easy for workers to lose track of time if they are not mindful of how they spend it at work. One of the most effective time management strategies for the workplace is to train your employees to be aware of how they spend their time.
Supervisors can help workers prioritize their tasks based on the day’s requirements. When workers know how they will spend their time on each job, they are more likely to be on track to use their time efficiently. It will also help if you put workers with similar tasks on the same shift as they will be spending time on similar jobs and can keep track.
2. Create work schedules
One of the most crucial time management techniques at the workplace is creating work schedules that ensure workers are most productive throughout the day. Simply put, work schedules must help employees finish the most pressing tasks in the early hours of their shifts.
You can also encourage workers to maintain a shift schedule to-do list to manage their shifts better. You can also create a general work schedule that you can put on the floor for workers to refer to. When you put everything on paper, there is no confusion or anxiety among workers, and they know what tasks they need to perform during the day and in what order.
For instance, if you manage a car assembly line, you can create a to-do list for the assembly line workers to follow. This will ensure they follow the plan instead of jumping between tasks.
3. Set time limits for tasks
Unsurprisingly, if you leave workers to decide how much time they take for a specific task, things are never completed on time. Setting time limits for tasks is another efficient time management strategy for the workplace. You have created a to-do list for everyday tasks and prioritized them in order of urgency.
The next step is to set time limits to keep operations smooth and flowing. You can decide how much time should be committed to a task before workers can take a break. For instance, machine operators in the manufacturing unit can be offered a 15 minutes break after every two hours of machine operation.
This will provide enough buffer to dissipate stress from two continuous working hours and keep workers productive. This technique is known to help keep focus with the help of frequent breaks by reducing mental strain and maintaining motivation.
4. Avoid doing multiple tasks at one time
It would help if you proactively informed workers that doing multiple tasks simultaneously will not make them more productive. We humans inherently expect that multitasking is one of the best management techniques in the workplace. Unfortunately, numerous clinical studies suggest that multitasking never works.
Studies have shown that when workers switch between several tasks, they become less efficient and are more likely to commit errors. Managers and supervisors must encourage workers to focus on the job and not think about other distractions.
You can discourage multitasking behavior by creating work schedules so that a limited number of tasks are given to workers, so they are relaxed about doing several things at once. Similarly, avoid sharing long to-do lists with workers as it can easily overwhelm them.
5. Use a time-tracking tool
What can be measured can be improved. Hence, you can only expect to ensure time management at the workplace by tracking employee work hours. Managers and supervisors must know the work schedules, events, tasks, milestones, etc.
A time tracking tool can help you know how workers spend their time at work. You can remain in control of shift schedules and quickly identify time management issues such as absenteeism and time theft.
Truein is an excellent time and attendance software that can boast time management at the workplace. It is a cloud-based, hardware-less time-tracking solution that can be deployed on workers’ phones. Truein features geofencing and GPS-tracking to track employees in real time.
It is essential for managers to ensure that workers are at their designated places during work hours. Apart from time management, this attendance management system also features leave management, overtime management, policy management, reporting, and advanced analytics.
Schedule a free demo today and try Truein time and attendance software in your organization.
Conclusion
Time management is beneficial for employers and employees equally. It ensures workers are productive throughout their shifts without undue stress on workload. At the same time, employers can ensure that business operations and production meet the goals and deadlines every time. Implement these time management techniques at the workplace to facilitate your workers in accomplishing high productivity.
